EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES  AND 
APPRECIATIVES 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES  AND 
APPRECIATIYES 


FREE  SPEECH   LEAGUE 

56  East  59th  Street 

NEW  YORK  CITY 

1913 


PRINTED  AT  HILLACRE 
RIVERSIDE,  CONNECTICUT 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Dr.  Edward  Bond  Foote, 

by  Theodore  Schroeder,  page  7 

Address  by  Prof.  Thaddeus  B.   Wakeman,  -    26 

Address  by  Bolton  Hall, 34 

Address  by  James  F.Morton ,      -        -        -  -    39 

Address  by  Leonard  D.  Abbott,      -        -  -        43 

Address  by  Edwin  C.   Walker,    -        -        -  -46 

Address  by  Dr.  John  Lovejoy  Eliot,        -  -        53 

Address  by  Rev.  William  Thurston  Brown,  -    55 

A  Letter  from  Mary  F.  Wat  kins,    -       -  60 

A  Letter  from  Lillian  Harman,-         -        -  -62 

A  Letter  from  Julia  H.  Severence,  M.  D.,  -        65 

A  Letter  from  M.  Florence  Johnson,          -  -    66 

A  Letter  from  James  B.Elliott,  67 

A  Letter  from  Franklin  Steiner,         -  -    68 

A  Letter  from  Celia  B.  Whitehead,         -  -        70 

A  Letter  from  John  Peck,  -     72 

Editorial  from  The  Truth  Seeker,  73 

Editorial  from  The  Freethinker,          -  -     78 

Editorial  from  Mother  Earth,  79 

Editorial  from  The  Malthusian,          -        -  -80 

Dr.  Ned  Foote,  from  The  Truth  Seeker,  -        81 


517728 


This  volume  is  prepared  by  the 
Free  Speech  League  for  the  purpose 
of  preserving-  some  tributes  to  the 
memory  of  Dr.  Edward  Bond  Foote, 
and  is  for  distribution  among  his 
friends,  in  the  hope  that  by  thus  giv- 
ing publicity  to  the  splendid  service 
rendered  to  society  by  one  of  its  least 
pretentious  and  most  modest  mem- 
bers, others  may  be  encouraged  to 
follow  his  example. 

Theodore  Schroeder, 

Secretary  F.  S.  L. 


DR.  EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

The  all-pervading  law  of  compensation 
exacts  its  price,  even  for  the  good  fortune 
of  having  a  distinguished  parent.  In  the 
case  of  Dr.  Edward  Bond  Foote,  the  price 
of  such  a  sire  was  the  temporary  overshad- 
owing of  his  own  abilities,  at  least  so  far  as 
public  recognition  was  concerned.  But  he 
was  naturally  so  unassuming  and  so  intel- 
lectually sensitive  to  and  appreciative  of 
those  characteristics  of  his  father  which  had 
won  wide  esteem,  that  in  the  son's  estima- 
tion the  price  was  inconsiderable  compared 
with  the  advantage. 

Dr.  Ned,  as  his  friends  familiarly  called 
him  and  as  I  still  prefer  to  call  him,  was  en- 
tering upon  manhood  about  the  time  that 
his  father,  Dr.  Edward  Bliss  Foote,  came 
under  the  influence  of  that  liberal  Unitarian, 
Rev.  O.  B.  Frothingham,  and  together  the 
father  and  son  traveled  the  road  from  Uni- 
tarianism  to  Agnosticism.  As  with  all  fun- 
damental thinkers,  no  subject  eventually 
escaped  the  scrutiny  inspired  by  the  scepti- 
cal   attitude    of    mind.      Although    licensed 

7 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

physicians,  both  father  and  son  were  con- 
sistent opponents  of  "State  medicine"  and 
this  naturally  did  not  increase  their  popu- 
larity in  their  profession.  They  believed 
sincerely  in  the  popularization  of  medical 
science  and  from  this  and  their  religious 
heresies  there  was  a  normal  and  wholesome 
growth  toward  the  broadest  appreciation  of 
intellectual  freedom  in  general.  Libertarian 
principles  gradually  became  the  controlling 
factor  in  Dr.  Ned's  life  and  it  was  not  long 
before  their  importance  was  indelibly  im- 
pressed upon  his  mind. 

The  initial  efforts  towards  censorship  of 
sex  literature  under  the  ban  of  that  plausible, 
question-begging  epithet  "obscene"  were 
made  in  the  years  1872  and  1873.  The  elder 
Dr.  Foote  offered  some  unavailing  remon- 
strance which  ensured  him  the  enmity  of  the 
influential  fellowship  of  moralists  for  reve- 
nue. He  believed  he  had  a  constitutional 
right  to  spread  intelligence,  even  about  sex- 
ual subjects,  and  so  risked  violation  of  a 
law  whose  criteria  of  guilt  no  one  knows  to 
this  day.  Relying  upon  his  assumed  rights, 
he  sent  to  an  enquirer  a  leaflet  on  the  means 
for  promoting  "race  suicide"  and  for  that 
reason  was  arrested  and  convicted  under  the 
postal  censorship  statute. 

About  this  time  Dr.  Ned  graduated  with 
honors  from  the  College  of  Physicians  and 
Surgeons  and  with  his  father  founded  and 
edited  Dr.  Foote' s  Health  Monthly.  Through 
some  twenty  volumes  of  this  publication  the 
battles  for  freedom  were  consistently  and 
courageously   waged.      Here   an   extraordi- 

8 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

nary  number  of  reforms,  some  of  which  have 
since  become  popular,  were  given  their  earli- 
est friendly  publicity  in  some  brief  notice 
or  review  calculated  to  stimulate  interest 
and  a  hospitable  attitude  of  mind.  There 
was  frequent  reference  to  single  tax,  spell- 
ing reform,  free  thought,  dress  reform,  the 
abolition  of  interest,  the  promotion  of  Mal- 
thusianism,  cremation,  prison  reform,  suf- 
frage, woman's  property  rights,  suggestive 
therapeutics,  greenbackism,  food  adultera- 
tion, medical  despotism,  the  relation  of  eco- 
nomics to  crime  and  the  application  of  med- 
icine and  surgery  to  the  prevention  of  crime, 
venereal  infection  through  the  drinking 
cup,  vivisection — practically  every  phase  of 
human  interest  tending  toward  freedom  and 
progress,  though  the  main  purpose  of  the 
magazine  was  always  the  popularization  of 
medical  science.  Much  of  this  missionary 
work  was  supplemented  by  meetings  and 
the  organization  of  societies  for  discussion 
of  the  various  subjects,  to  many  of  which 
both  father  and  son  contributed  financially 
as  well  as  in  time  and  energy. 

The  arrest  of  his  father  and  one  other  in- 
cident of  his  youth  were  probably  crucial  in 
determining  Dr.  Ned's  later  activities.  Dur- 
ing his  tenure  as  secretary  of  the  New  York 
Liberal  Club,  a  widely  advertised  lecturer 
from  a  distance  had  at  the  last  moment 
been  unable  to  keep  his  appointment  and 
Dr.  Ned  tried  in  vain  to  find  a  substitute. 
The  other  officers  of  the  Club  insisted  that 
he  should  say  or  read  something  that  would 
start  a  discussion  and  thus  avert  the  prob- 

9 


EDWARD   IJOND   FOOTE 

able  popular  disappointment.  He  was  still 
too  young  to  have  become  very  proficient  as 
a  speaker  and  there  was  no  time  for  ade- 
quate preparation.  He  possessed  a  number 
of  clippings  and  had  made  notes  on  vital 
subjects  which  interested  him,  and  from 
these  he  hastily  prepared  a  paper  which  he 
entitled  "Generation  Before  Regeneration." 
His  audience  was  obviously  divided  in  its 
reception  of  what  he  had  to  say  even  before 
he  had  finished  speaking,  and  during  the  dis- 
cussion which  followed  the  police  arrested 
several  of  the  "rioters."  This  incident  re- 
sulted in  the  refusal  of  further  use  of  the 
college  rooms  to  the  Club  and  eventually  in 
the  disruption  and  death  of  the  organization. 
Subsequently  that  paper  was  published  as 
delivered.  To  reread  it  at  present  is  to  see 
much  that  is  yet  needed,  and  to  wonder  how 
it  could  ever  have  been  the  cause  of  a  dis- 
turbance. It  really  embodies  the  foundation 
principles  of  his  life  work.  Viewed  in  long 
perspective  we  can  see  that  intellectual  hos- 
pitality has  grown  since  that  paper  was  read. 
After  the  disruption  of  the  New  York 
Liberal  Club,  Dr.  Foote  with  his  unusual 
tact  and  energy  gathered  together  its  more 
radical  members  and  with  these  organized 
the  Manhattan  Liberal  Club  of  which  Ho- 
race Greeley  was  the  first  president.  In  his 
maturer  years  Dr.  Ned  succeeded  Mr.  Gree- 
ley in  the  presidential  office  and  for  nearly 
a  third  of  a  century  this  organization  ofTered 
a  platform  for  the  presentation  of  the  most 
radical  thought  of  the  metropolis.  Many 
a  noted  reformer  of  our  time  is,  intellectual- 

10 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

ly,  a  child  of  that  most  useful  organization 
and  many  more  owe  their  intellectual 
breadth  and  hospitality  to  some  acquaint- 
ance with  it.  It  is  probable  that  the  broad- 
ening influence  of  this  organization  had 
much  to  do  in  developing  Dr.  Foote's  sym- 
pathy for  liberty  from  a  personal  interest 
to  the  recognition  of  a  general  principle  to 
which  all  particulars  are  subordinate. 

Late  in  the  seventies  Dr.  Ned  again  found 
himself  waging  the  battle  of  freedom,  but 
this  time  among  liberals  many  of  whom  un- 
fortunately had  little  knowledge  of  the  prin- 
ciples which  were  implied  in  their  professed 
ideals.  The  censorial  laws  enacted  earlier  in 
the  decade  were  now  being  vigorously  en- 
forced against  social  heretics  and  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  be  specially  oppressive  to  free- 
thinkers. D.  M.  Bennett,  the  editor  of  the 
Truthseeker yhad  been  arrested  for  mailing  "An 
Open  Letter  to  Jesus  Christ"  and  "How  Do 
Marsupials  Propagate."  Ezra  Haywood,  edi- 
tor of  The  Word,  had  been  arrested  for  sell- 
ing "Cupid's  Yokes,"  Frank  Rivers  for  dis- 
posing of  "Fruits  of  Philosophy."  Anthony 
Comstock,  at  that  time  the  most  efficient 
persecutor,  had  threatened  the  suppression  of 
the  Boston  Investigator,  the  Truthscekcr  and 
the  Banner  of  Light,  the  first  two  being  free- 
thought  papers  and  the  last  a  spiritualist 
organ.  In  his  report  for  the  year  1878  to 
the  "New  York  Society  for  the  Suppression 
of  Vice,"  Mr.  Comstock  had  boasted  that 
"another  class  of  publications  issued  by 
free-lovers  and  free-thinkers  is  in  a  fair  way 
of   being   stamped   out."      If   the    statutory 

11 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

word  "indecent"  was  not  sufficient  to  actual- 
ly suppress  all  free-thought  publications, 
there  was  a  fair  prospect  of  a  statutory 
amendment  to  include  "blasphemy"  among 
the  prohibited  mail  matter. 

This  naturally  alarmed  the  liberals  of  the 
country  and  soon  secured  the  attention  of 
the  National  Liberal  League,  which  was 
then  becoming  an  influential  organization. 
A  petition  was  framed  claiming  to  have 
seventy-five  thousand  signatures  and  pray- 
ing for  "the  repeal  or  modification"  of  the 
obscenity  laws.  Dr.  E.  B.  Foote,  Jr.,  A.  E. 
Giles  and  J.  B.  Wolf  supported  the  petition 
before  a  congressional  committee  while 
Anthony  Comstock  and  Samuel  Colgate 
made  successful  resistance.  Colonel  Robert 
G.  Ingersoll  did  not  at  first  actively  appear 
in  support  of  the  petition  but  favored  "mod- 
ification" of  the  laws  so  as  to  preclude  the 
prosecution  of  books  honestly  intended  to 
benefit  mankind.  For  this  reason  he  con- 
sented to  attach  his  name  to  the  petition. 
This  brought  upon  him  such  virulence  of 
attack  from  the  clergy  and  other  profes- 
sional moralists  that  he  was  frequently  im- 
pelled to  a  vigorous  disclaimer  of  any  de- 
sire for  actual  repeal  of  these  "obscenity" 
laws. 

This  situation  brought  on  a  series  of  con- 
flicts within  the  National  Liberal  League 
between  those  who  desired  the  repeal  and 
those  who  were  content  with  little  or  no 
modification  of  the  statutes,  which  conflict 
finally  resulted  in  the  disruption  of  the 
League.    I  think  I  may  roughly  classify  the 

12 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

contestants  into  three  groups,  one  of  which, 
headed  by  the  Honorable  E.  P.  Hurlbut, 
frankly  endorsed  comstockery  and  its  cen- 
sorship. 

Another  was  headed  by  Colonel  Ingersoll, 
who  evidently  did  not  believe  in  complete 
intellectual  freedom  as  a  principle,  probably 
because  against  the  seeming  benefits  of  a 
particular  suppression  he  did  not  balance  the 
evils  of  conceding  an  unlimited  constitu- 
tional authority  for  creating  other  censor- 
ships. This  faction  demanded  a  precise  defi- 
nition of  the  offence  and  amendments  to  en- 
large liberty  to  a  point  of  assuring  their  own 
safety.  Objection  to  repeal  was  based  only 
on  the  desirability  of  particular  suppres- 
sions, and  on  this  Colonel  Ingersoll  argued 
that:  "You  cannot  afford  to  put  into  the 
mouth  of  theology  a  perpetual  and  contin- 
ual slur,"  by  failing  to  appear  on  record  as 
opposed  to  the  repeal  of  the  "obscenity" 
statutes.  It  is  regrettable  that  he  was  not 
better  informed  on  the  psychology  of  mod- 
esty and  obscenity,  because  with  that  knowl- 
edge and  his  libertarian  tendency  he  prob- 
ably would  have  reached  a  different  conclu- 
sion. However,  since  sexual  psychology 
had  not  yet  been  born  into  the  family  of 
sciences,  this  matter  could  hardly  have  been 
different.  Even  those  who  were  more  rad- 
ical are  found  to  be  similarly  hampered. 

A  third  group  was  led  toward  a  repeal  of 
the  federal  statutes  upon  this  subject  of 
obscenity  under  the  guidance  of  D.  M.  Ben- 
nett who  seemed  to  have  had  even  less  con- 
ception of  the  principle  of  freedom  than  the 

13 


EDWARD    HONI)    FOOTE 

followers  of  Ingersoll.  Bennett  argued  that 
"It  is  under  state  laws  that  obscenity  is  a 
crime  and  should  be  punished,"  which  posi- 
tion suggests  a  hypocritical  deprecation  of 
"obscene"  literature.  So  far  as  one  can 
judge  at  this  distance,  the  motive  by  which 
this  group  was  actuated  was  a  belief  that 
state  courts  would  deal  more  gently  with 
offenders  than  did  federal  courts  and  might 
be  more  responsive  to  that  public  opinion  to 
which  the  fanatic  Comstockians  are,  after 
all,  an  exception. 

The  most  intelligent  advocate  of  repeal 
was  Thaddeus  Burr  Wakeman.  Although 
not  so  popular  an  orator  as  Ingersoll,  he 
was  a  man  of  greater  philosophic  attain- 
ment and  a  very  forceful  speaker  in  his  way. 
Professor  Wakeman  stood  for  repeal  on  the 
ground  that  the  statute  was  unconstitu- 
tional. In  his  Faneuil  Hall  speech  he  left 
little  that  could  comfort  any  Comstockian. 
In  later  speeches  he  made  more  definite  con- 
cessions for  the  suppression  of  "obscenity" 
by  the  States.  The  followers  of  Bennett 
and  Wakeman  constituted  a  majority  of  the 
convention.  In  consequence  Ingersoll  re- 
signed his  vice-presidency  and  with  his  fol- 
lowers abandoned  the  League.  But  the  van- 
ity of  respectability  apparently  with  a  con- 
sciousness of  inability  to  adequately  defend 
general  intellectual  freedom  against  the 
slurs  of  orthodoxy,  induced  the  mass  of  lib- 
erals to  follow  Ingersoll  rather  than  Wake- 
man. A  number  of  Professor  Wakeman's 
addresses  attacking  the  censorship  upon 
constitutional    grounds    were    published   by 

14 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 

the  Doctors  Foote.  It  was  no  doubt  during 
these  years  of  stress  and  storm  among  the 
liberals  that  Dr.  Ned's  own  views  were  crys- 
tallizing into  those  broader  principles  which 
he  came  to  see  with  increasing  clarity  as  one 
persecution  after  another  elicited  his  interest 
and  became  coordinated  in  his  mind  with 
other  like  experiences. 

The  arrest  of  Bennett  and  Heywood  was 
followed  by  the  cases  of  Lant,  Train,  Slen- 
ker,  Waisbrooker,  Caldwell,  Jones,  Shew, 
Thrall,  McNair,  Noyes,  Isaacs  and  others, 
each  making  among  liberal-minded  people 
some  little  stir  in  its  time.  The  numerous 
arrests  of  Moses  Harman  specially  inter- 
ested Dr.  Ned.  In  every  instance  where 
serious  opinions  were  involved  in  the  sup- 
pression, he  and  his  father  gave  needed 
publicity  in  their  magazine  and  this  without 
regard  to  their  approval  of  the  suppressed 
idea.  When  occasion  required  it  they  con- 
tributed defense-money.  Later  they  organ- 
ized a  "Defense  Committee"  which  de- 
veloped into  the  "National  Defence  Associa- 
tion," for  both  of  which  the  Health  Monthly 
was  the  unofficial  organ. 

Dr.  Ned  was  the  treasurer  of  many  similar 
liberalizing  organizations,  often  making  the 
initial  contribution  and  providing  for  the 
final  deficit  after  others  had  wearied  of  giv- 
ing. I  remember  he  told  me  on  one  occasion 
that  he  felt  he  ought  to  make  some  report 
as  treasurer  of  a  certain  organization  but 
that  he  really  was  ashamed  to  do  so  because 
the  contributions  other  than  his  own  were 


EDWARD    IJOND   FOOTE 

so  small  and  so  few.  Such  was  the  inherent 
modesty  of  this  extraordinary  man. 

When  impossible  for  him  to  appear  per- 
sonally before  legislative  committees  having 
under  consideration  laws  for  the  further  cur- 
tailment of  liberty,  especially  in  the  dis- 
semination of  knowledge  upon  vital  human 
affairs,  Dr.  Ned  would  finance  a  representa- 
tive. Thus  he  took  an  active  part  in  every 
important  struggle  for  larger  intellectual 
freedom  that  occurred  during  his  mature 
life  and  always  with  that  characteristic  self- 
abnegation  which  made  him  content  to  fight 
without  reward  or  glory,  or  even  recogni- 
tion, though  he  never  shrank  from  work  in 
the  vanguard  when  such  heroism  was  de- 
manded. 

Of  course  neither  Dr.  Foote  nor  the  little 
group  of  courageous  fighters  inspired  by  him 
could  expect  to  really  thwart  the  lust  for 
power  and  greed  for  pelf  which  impel  in- 
creasingly invasive  legislation,  and  despite 
their  ceaseless  resistance  our  censorship  of 
opinion  has  grown  apace  with  all  our  other 
forms  of  paternalism.  The  glory  of  their 
work  is  not  in  the  achievement  but  in  the 
fine  impersonal  character  of  the  effort. 

The  popular  hysteria  aroused  by  the  as- 
sassination of  President  McKinley  led  to  the 
passage  of  numerous  "anti-anarchist"  laws 
which  if  uniformly  enforced  would  certainly 
have  excluded  from  the  United  States  even 
such  characters  as  Tolstoi  and  Jesus.  When 
an  English  anarchist  named  John  Turner 
was  arrested  here  for  deportation  it  was  de- 
cided by  the  friends  of  free  speech  to  test 

16 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

the  constitutionality  of  such  legislation.  A 
voluntary  association  was  formed  and  called 
"The  Free  Speech  League"  and  as  usual  Dr. 
Ned  was  made  treasurer.  It  was  in  this 
capacity  that  he  did  a  fine  thing  character- 
istic of  the  genuineness  and  courage  of  the 
man.  At  that  time  the  "yellow"  journals 
had  made  some  leaders  of  the  anarchist 
group  of  America  the  most  widely  feared  and 
despised  persons  in  the  United  States  and 
of  course  these  were  terribly  hounded  by  the 
police  and  through  them  by  the  landlords. 
Dr.  Foote  did  not  agree  with  their  social 
theories,  but,  as  a  libertarian,  he  felt  that 
they  had  a  right  to  disagree  with  him  and 
with  others  and  to  be  protected  in  express- 
ing those  theories.  As  the  surest  protection 
which  he  could  give  and  with  no  concern 
whatever  for  his  own  popularity  or  comfort, 
he  aided  the  leader  of  them  to  secure  em- 
ployment as  a  nurse  to  one  of  his  patients 
and  cooperated  with  her  for  the  preparation 
and  financing  of  the  Turner  defence. 

It  was  in  actions  such  as  this  that  the 
broadness  and  heroism  of  Dr.  Ned's  intel- 
lectual hospitality  were  constantly  shown. 
Wherever  men  and  women  were  persecuted 
for  their  beliefs,  however  unpopular,  he  was 
always  generous  in  their  defence.  In  many 
instances  where  imprisonment  followed,  he 
even  contributed  to  the  support  of  the  pris- 
oner's family  during  incarceration.  He 
seemed  to  feel  almost  a  personal  responsi- 
bility for  any  abridgement  of  human  liberty 
and  was  ready  to  expend  himself  to  the  ut- 
termost to  right  such  wrongs  done  by  so- 

17 


EDWARD    HOND   FOOTE 

ciety  toward  its  heretics  whether  friends  or 
strangers,  whether  holding  opinions  with 
which  he  agreed  or  those  radically  opposed. 
It  was  precisely  in  such  impersonal  services 
as  these  in  which  could  not  be  any  possible 
material  advantage,  public  acclaim  or  re- 
spectable recognition  that  he  deliberately 
sacrificed  both  money  and  popularity.  He 
was  contented  to  devote  his  whole  life  to 
humanitarian  effort  without  even  the  recog- 
nition by  others  that  he  had  any  existence 
as  a  humanitarian.  Such  modesty  and  such 
life-long  devotion  to  impersonal  service  in 
the  promotion  of  principles  are  very  seldom 
combined  in  the  same  man  and  evidence  the 
very  rarest  of  virtues.  Hoping  to  perpetu- 
ate his  efforts  for  the  enlargement  of  intel- 
lectual liberty,  he  was  mainly  instrumental 
in  inducing  the  incorporation  of  The  Free 
Speech  League  in  191 1. 

He  often  expressed  regret  that  radicals 
and  freethinkers  had  not  developed  larger 
and  more  efficient  institutions  for  the  pro- 
motion of  human  betterment  according  to 
their  own  radical  ideals.  He  had  more  than 
once  regretted  the  absence  of  a  pension  fund 
for  veterans  of  unpopular  causes.  When 
Professor  Wakeman,  Colonel  Ingersoll  and 
others  conceived  the  idea  of  a  Liberal  Uni- 
versity at  Silverton,  Ore.,  Dr.  Ned  gave  gen- 
erously toward  the  enterprise.  He  heartily 
approved  of  the  project  to  teach  science  and 
philosophy  according  to  the  revelations  of  the 
scientific  method  rather  than  that  expanding 
minds  should  be  tortured  into  conformity 
with  alleged  revelations  from  God.     Much 

18 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 

financial  aid  had  been  expected  through  the 
efforts  of  Colonel  Ingersoll,  whose  death, 
however,  intervened  to  frustrate  this  part  of 
the  plan,  and  the  whole  project  failed,  after 
a  few  years  of  devoted  effort.  But  Dr.  Ned's 
faith  never  wavered  in  his  confidence  in  the 
ultimate  value  of  such  a  center  of  liberalized 
learning  and  the  fine  influence  it  would 
eventually  have  upon  the  educators  of  the 
country. 

Every  little  while  it  was  his  custom  to  dis- 
tribute money  for  the  promotion  of  humani- 
tarian ends.  No  one  organization  received 
enough  at  one  time  to  furnish  spectacular 
headlines  in  the  newspapers,  but  he  probably 
gave  most  of  his  earnings.  Perhaps  not 
even  his  best  friends  knew  all  the  diversified 
humanizing  efforts  which  he  helped.  Free- 
thinkers knew  one  side,  freespeakers  an- 
other; eugenists  another;  single-taxers,  med- 
ical reformers,  anti-vaccinationists,  legiti- 
mationists  knew  still  other  sides  and  so  on 
down  the  list  even  to  spelling  reformers  and 
conventional  philanthropists.  No  one  will 
know  all.  Even  during  his  last  illness  he 
did  not  forget  his  wards.  The  following  list 
represents  part  of  the  institutions  to  whose 
work  he  contributed  and  is  given  as  illustra- 
tive of  his  broad  sympathy:  Paine  National 
Historical  Society;  Society  for  Ethical  Cul- 
ture, Summer  Home;  New  Rochelle  Hos- 
pital; Fels  Fund  of  America;  Free  Speech 
League;  Washington  Square  House  for 
Friendless  Girls;  Mothers'  and  Babies'  Com- 
mittee of  the  State  Charities  Aid  Commit- 
tee;   New   York    Child    Labor    Committee; 

19 


EDWARD    HOND    FOOTE 

Brooklyn  Affiliated  Charities;  American 
Seaman's  Friends  Society;  Association  for 
Practical  Housekeeping,  George  Republic; 
Men's  League  for  Women's  Suffrage; 
American  Secular  Union;  Berkshire  Farm 
Association;  New  York  Probation  Associa- 
tion; Brooklyn  Bureau  of  Charities;  Parks 
and  Playground  Association;  Children's  Aid 
Society,  for  Fresh  Air  Fund;  Prison  Asso- 
ciation of  New  York;  National  Purity  As- 
sociation; Free  Thought  Tract  Society; 
Postal  Reform  League  and  Charity  Organ- 
ization Society.  All  this  besides  many  con- 
tributions to  radical  and  free  thought  pub- 
lications. If  specifically  libertarian  organ- 
izations are  not  as  predominant  in  the  above 
list  as  might  be  wished,  the  explanation  may 
be  found  in  their  inefficiency.  Even  here  we 
see  a  fine  impersonal  spirit  manifested  in 
that  Dr.  Foote  was  unwilling  to  be  released 
from  well-doing,  merely  because  he  was 
unable  to  exhaust  his  powers  in  what  seemed 
to  him  preferable  objects  and  methods.  If 
he  could  not  do  good  in  his  own  best  way 
he  would  do  it  according  to  another's  way, 
but  always  do  the  best  possible  under  given 
circumstances. 

Dr.  Foote  was  a  sincere  and  zealous  Mal- 
thusian  who  considered  it  an  outrage  to  al- 
low children  to  be  born  into  unfit  environ- 
ment, or  as  unwelcome  guests  or  from  phys- 
ically unfit  parents  simply  because  legalized 
bigotry  makes  it  a  crime  to  give  informa- 
tion as  to  means  for  avoiding  fecundation. 
Here  he  practised  what  he  preached  in  a  fine 
devotion  to  principle.     In  the  most  imper- 

20 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 


sonal  manner  he  estimated  his  own  physical 
unfitness  for  parenthood,  generously  resolv- 
ing all  doubts  against  himself  and  in  favor 
of  the  potential  offspring.  With  a  like  sen- 
sitive regard  for  the  happiness  of  others  he 
hesitated  to  inflict  so  deep  a  deprivation 
upon  another  and  consequently  refrained 
from  marriage  until  late  in  life. 

So  without  the  blessings  of  offspring, 
though  under  the  zealous  and  intelligent  de- 
votion and  tender  ministrations  of  his  wife, 
Dr.  Mary  E.  Bond  Foote,  Dr.  Ned's  life 
passed  peacefully  and  painlessly  away,  she 
prolonging  his  services  to  humanity  by  ex- 
ecuting his  wishes  in  the  socially  useful  dis- 
tribution of  his  estate. 

He  was  preeminently  a  humanitarian  in 
the  very  best  and  broadest  sense.  From  in- 
fancy he  breathed  the  atmosphere  of  pro- 
test against  tyranny — the  tyranny  of  fear, 
of  superstition,  of  disease,  of  injustice,  of 
poverty,  of  ignorance.  He  labored  cease- 
lessly to  dissipate  the  fogs  of  mystery  by 
spreading  the  light  of  science.  He  had 
chosen  a  profession  which,  in  its  finer  as- 
pects, is  a  profession  of  service  and  he 
sought  to  popularize  its  attainments.  By 
the  revisions  of  his  father's  books  he  literal- 
ly made  them  his  own.  Through  this  form 
of  popularized  science  the  humanitarian 
effort  of  his  career  brought  him  into  helpful 
relations  with  literally  over  a  million  of 
suffering  humans.  I  think  the  fundamental 
and  guiding  principle  of  his  life  was  the  in- 
sistence that  every  one  should  have  an  ac- 
knowledged right  to  know  all  that  is  to  be 

21 


EDWARD    DOM)    I  (M)TE 

known  upon  every  conceivable  subject,  for 
thus  only  can  we  preserve  for  all  an  equal 
and  fair  opportunity  in  life. 

As  a  political  heretic,  early  identified  with 
progressive  movements  whose  policies  are 
only  now  attaining  popular  recognition,  he 
grew  to  ideals  still  more  radical.  He  was 
among  the  pioneers  in  every  efTort  to  pro- 
mote social  justice  such  as  those  looking  to- 
ward the  creation  of  Eugenic  Science,  the 
teaching  of  sex  hygiene  in  the  public  schools, 
the  promotion  of  race  betterment  through 
intelligent  sex  selection,  the  voluntary  ster- 
ilization of  defectives;  uncoerced  enlight- 
ened maternity  and  childhood  and  mother- 
hood welfare  in  general.  In  this  connection 
he  anticipated  much  of  the  recent  thought 
by  which  we  are  developing  a  scientific 
moral  code,  especially  in  relation  to  sex. 

He  made  much  money,  spent  on  himself 
only  enough  to  live  in  refined  simplicity  and 
considered  all  the  rest  as  held  in  trust  for 
humanity.  Perhaps  even  this  is  not  so  un- 
usual as  to  elicit  very  great  homage  unless 
we  take  into  account  the  tender  yet  en- 
lightened sympathy  which  prompted  all,  the 
refined  sense  of  justice  which  guided  him  to 
seek  and  befriend  the  most  unpopular  of  the 
victims  of  the  most  conspicuous  pharisees. 
Thus  he  sought  to  balance  the  scales  of  jus- 
tice even  for  the  most  despised,  especially  if 
they  were  such  as  are  usually  neglected  by 
professional  philanthropists  or  most  scorned 
by  the  conventionally  self-righteous. 

In  enlightened  circles,  culture  is  measured 
by  the  extension  of  the  field  of  consciousness 

22 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

of  social  relations.  Judged  by  this  test  Dr. 
Edward  Bond  Foote  was  one  of  the  most 
cultured  among  men.  He  had  a  conscious 
kinship  to  all  humanity.  A  wrong  to  any 
one,  anywhere,  was  a  wrong  to  himself  by 
virtue  of  his  own  kinship  to  all  the  rest.  He 
not  only  sympathized  with  and  understood 
the  sufferings  and  needs  of  the  oppressed, 
but  what  is  more  important,  he  also  under- 
stood the  oppressor,  and  so  could  be  hurt 
without  being  revengeful,  could  seek  re- 
straint and  cure  without  desiring  to  inflict 
punishment,  and  could  be  kind  and  generous 
without  being  self-righteous.  Furthermore, 
this  was  not  a  mere  matter  of  sentimental- 
ism  but  rather  of  intelligent  comprehension 
of  social  relations  and  causation.  Where 
others  dispense  charity  to  those  whose 
bodies  are  in  need,  he  cured  the  body  and 
sought  to  bestow  his  surplus  wealth  where 
it  would  feed  the  mind  rather  than  the 
stomach,  or  the  stomach  that  had  a  socially 
useful  mind  above  it.  When  others  saw 
only  the  individual  sufferer  he  saw  also  the 
relation  of  that  suffering  to  its  causes  in  hu- 
man ignorance,  perverse  social  conventions 
and  institutions.  Where  others  only  at- 
tempted to  relieve  pain,  he  endeavored  to 
remove  the  personal  and  social  causes  of 
pain.  Where  others  sentimentalized  he 
rationalized.  Where  some  are  content  to 
bestow  their  benefactions  only  upon  those 
who  can  applaud  within  hearing,  this  man 
without  ostentation  gave  a  helping  hand  to 
every  new  idea  seeking  a  rational  expres- 
sion, no  matter  who  or  where  on  earth  its 

23 


EDWARD    BOND  FOOTE 

advocate  might  be.  In  this  sense  it  is  lit- 
erally true  that  he  gave  substantial  aid  to 
intellectual  and  social  progress  all  over  the 
world.  He  was  not  content  that  super- 
ficially all  should  appear  to  have  an  equal 
chance,  he  sought  to  insure  them  also  the 
best  equal  chance. 

He  lived,  he  worked,  he  suffered,  that 
others  in  the  future  might  live  richer  and 
happier  lives  than  those  of  the  past.  Al- 
most the  only  joys  of  his  life,  certainly  the 
greatest  joys  of  his  life,  came  through  mak- 
ing others  happy.  There  is  perhaps  no 
surer,  saner  way  to  make  the  world  a  better 
place  to  live  in,  few  if  any  greater  or  more 
far-reaching  forces  for  human  betterment 
as  a  whole,  than  the  practice  of  such  sweet 
tolerance  as  his  for  those  who  differ,  his 
calm  resignation  both  in  triumph  and  dis- 
aster, and  his  gentle  yet  ceaseless  devotion 
to  the  truth,  for  humanity's  sake. 

Theodore  Schroeder 


24 


At  a  memorial  meeting  held  Decem- 
ber 22.  1912,  in  Bryant  Hall,  New 
York  City,  the  following  addresses 
were  made  and  letters  read  in  appre- 
ciation of  the  character  and  service 
of  Dr.  Edward  Bond  Foote. 


ADDRESS  BY 

PROF.  THADDEUS  B.  WAKEMAN 
(Author  and  Lawyer) 

"The  longer  we  live  and  the  more  we  learn, 
the  more  certain  we  are  of  one  thing  and 
this  is  that  practically  all  of  the  ills  that 
mankind  is  supposed  to  inherit  may  be 
greatly  mitigated,  even  entirely  eliminated, 
through  knowledge  and  the  proper  applica- 
tion of  that  knowledge.  Even  calamities 
that  are  blasting,  final,  such  as  war  and 
death,  when  seen  in  their  relation  to  the 
whole  human  world  often  become  the  con- 
ditions of  life's  chiefest  blessings — a  new 
man,  a  new  nation,  seeking  a  higher  purpose. 

"It  was  so  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  in 
1865.  It  was  then  that  our  thinkers  began 
to  seriously  consider  what  the  blood-and- 
death-bought  future  and  promise  of  the 
American  people  should  be.  A  deep  and 
widespread  wave  of  religious  feeling  swept 
over  the  country,  springing  from  an  entirely 
new  source — no  longer  that  of  other-world 
revelation  but  born  of  a  sense  of  social  serv- 
ice based  upon  social  science  and  an  intelli- 
gent appreciation  of  the  import  of  true  re- 
ligion and  the  needs  of  the  nation  as  a 
whole. 

26 


EDWARD  BOND   FOOTE 

"On  this  foundation  and  for  these  purposes 
a  number  of  organizations  were  formed, 
particularly  in  our  Northern  States.  Some 
of  these  were  very  broad  in  their  teaching, 
as  broad  as  the  movement  of  Positivism  in 
France,  and  Herbert  Spencer's  philosophy 
of  evolution  in  England.  A  new  and  wide- 
spread conviction  came  into  being  in  this 
country,  to  the  effect  that  the  old  bases  of 
religion  would  no  longer  stand  the  test 
which  the  newer  science  and  democracy 
would  apply  to  it. 

"The  result  was  a  number  of  organizations 
for  liberal  discussion  as  well  as  scientific 
associations,  chief  among  which  and  in  a 
sense  combining  the  several  purposes  of 
both,  was  The  Liberal  Club  of  New  York. 
At  the  beginning  this  had  only  about  half 
a  dozen  members,  but  soon  something  like 
a  score  began  meeting  in  a  Third  Avenue 
restaurant  and  later  in  Plympton  Hall,  then 
at  141  Sixth  Street,  which  they  converted 
into  "Science  Hall."  The  Club  was  inau- 
gurated on  the  fourteenth  of  September, 
1869,  on  the  occasion  of  a  Great  Humboldt 
birthday  celebration.  It  was  later  incorpo- 
rated and  for  about  thirty  years  held  meet- 
ings every  Friday  night  for  public  discus- 
sion, in  addition  to  dinners,  exhibitions  and 
meetings  for  special  discussions  and  the 
consideration  of  important  subjects,  as  oc- 
casion demanded. 

"The  main  object  of  the  Liberal  Club  is 
stated  in  my  certificate  of  membership 
which  I  have  here  in  my  hand — I  was  one 
of  the  first  members — 'the  extension  of  the 

27 


EDWARD    HOND    POOTB 

study  of  science,  literature  and  art.'  In 
other  words,  science  stood  for  truth,  litera- 
ture for  general  knowledge  and  information, 
and  art  (including  the  application  of  truth 
to  life)  was  extended  to  cover  what  we 
called  universal  art,  from  architecture  to 
music,  ethics  and  the  entire  conduct  of  civil- 
ized life. 

"I  have  a  reason  for  referring  to  these  mat- 
ters in  some  detail,  for  among  the  first  who 
gathered  at  the  meetings  of  the  Liberal 
Club  was  Dr.  E.  Bliss  Foote,  already  well 
known  as  the  preacher  of  health,  physical 
and  mental,  the  editor  of  the  Health  Monthly. 
With  him,  later,  came  his  son,  Dr.  Edward 
Bond  Foote,  whose  memorial  we  are  here 
now  to  celebrate,  and  to  keep  his  memory 
fresh  by  recalling  the  facts  that  gave  it 
value.  It  was  through  this  Club  that  'Dr. 
Ned  Foote,  Jr.,'  became  my  personal  friend. 
Almost  from  the  first  there  was  between  us 
a  friendship  that  became  increasingly  warm 
and  devoted.  We  had  both  entered  into  the 
Liberal  Club  movement  with  all  our  heart 
and  energy.  Dr.  Ned  had  then  but  recently 
graduated  from  the  College  of  Physicians 
and  Surgeons  in  this  city  and  he  poured  all 
the  wealth  of  his  youthful  enthusiasm  and 
ideals  into  the  work  of  the  Club. 

"About  the  same  time  he  became  interested 
in  some  liberal  and  religious  movements 
along  other  lines  and  frequently  listened  to 
the  preaching  of  Mr.  O.  B.  Frothingham,  a 
wrell-known  liberal  Unitarian  minister.  But 
it  was  in  the  Club  that  he  took,  as  he  laugh- 
ingly claimed,  the  two  positions  of  post- 
28 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

graduate  student  and  also  teacher  from  the 
medical  university — a  humorous  instructor 
when  he  could  teach,  a  serious  teacher  when 
he  could  learn. 

"He  was  also  a  member  of  and  a  worker 
with  nearly  every  liberal  movement  prom- 
ising anything  good  or  progressive  in  this 
city,  from  that  time  until  the  day  of  his 
death.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  in  his 
compilation  and  writing  of  that  very  useful 
work.  'Four  Hundred  Years  of  Free 
Thought,'  the  late  Samuel  P.  Putnam  ob- 
tained from  Dr.  Foote  a  short  statement  of 
his  life  and  views.  That  was  in  1894,  when 
this  book  was  published  by  the  Truth  Seeker. 
He  then  put  himself  on  record,  as  it  were, 
so  that  we  have  there  a  complete  resume  of 
his  judgment,  his  views,  purposes  and  life. 
I  want  to  read  from  that  short  statement 
that  he  then  made  for  all  and  so  for  us.  It 
gives  in  his  own  words  the  picture  of  his 
work  and  his  hopes  when  in  his  prime: 

"  'It  makes  me  feel  rather  lonesome  to 
build  my  platform,  and  I  even  wonder 
whether  I  may  not  have  to  occupy  it  all 
alone.  If  there  be  others  cast  to  fit  this 
mold,  just  like  me,  I  should  be  glad  to  know 
where  to  find  them,  though  I  am  far  from 
wishing  that  every  one  should  agree  with 
me  all  round.  In  medicine  I  am  eclectic, 
with  preference  for  hygienic  practice,  but  a 
believer  in  utility  of  medicine;  an  advocate 
of  medical  freedom,  or  abrogation  of  all  re- 
strictive laws  that  rule  out  undiplomaed 
'healers';  an  anti-vaccionationist,  but  a  be- 
liever in  utility  of  vivisection  limited.      As  a 

29 


EDWARD    IJOND    FOOTS 

hygienist  I  favor  (and  almost  practice) 
vegetarianism,  avoid  tobacco,  and  apply 
prohibition  of  alcoholics  to  myself.  I  am 
one  of  the  neo-malthusian  cranks  who  would 
limit  population,  and  my  pet  hobby  is  'eu- 
genics/ or  the  right  of  every  child  to  be  well 
born,  or  not  at  all.  So  I  also  advocate 
woman  suffrage,  and  the  sexual  emancipa- 
tion of  women,  less  bondage  in  marriage, 
far  greater  freedom  in  divorce,  and  believe 
that  every  child  should  be  as  legitimate  in 
law  as  in  nature.  Politically  I  favor  Na- 
tionalism, or  the  People's  Party,  a  moderate 
protective  tariff,  bimetallism  on  the  old  ba- 
sis (for  the  present),  and  greenbackism  as 
soon  as  we  can  be  freed  from  barbarous  de- 
votion to  metals. 

"  'As  to  religion,  I  am  Agnostic,  subscribe 
to  the  articles  of  the  Secularists,  and  find 
myself  pretty  closely  in  accord  with  the 
Positivism  of  Mr.  T.  B.  Wakeman,  to  whom 
I  am  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  offer  pub- 
licly many  thanks  for  much  useful,  rational, 
liberal  instruction.  Lastly,  I  look  forward 
to  cremation,  and  anticipate  nothing  further, 
except  the  continuing  results  of  my  life, 
works  and  influence.' 

"In  this  statement  we  have  a  man  modestly 
revealing  to  us  as  perfect  a  humanitarian,  as 
alert  and  progressive  a  physician,  as  vigor- 
ous and  fearless  a  reformer,  as  any  man  in 
New  York  City,  perhaps  in  any  city.  And 
among  us  who  survive  and  who  are  rallying 
about  the  colors  since  he  left  the  ranks,  how 
many  of  us  measure  up  to  his  standard  in 

30 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

real  liberality,  courage  and  simple,  unosten- 
tatious beneficence? 

"It  is  impossible,  of  course,  to  give  here 
and  now  the  full  facts,  the  countless  per- 
sonal details  that  richly  justify  this  highest 
praise.  But  all  you  who  now  hear  me  speak, 
know  it  to  be  true.  Those  who  will  follow 
me  on  this  platform  to-day  in  giving  Dr. 
Foote's  service  and  character  the  tribute 
they  deserve,  are  but  a  handful  of  the  thou- 
sands who  could  bear  witness  to  the  in- 
fluence his  life  has  had  upon  the  cause  of 
liberal  thought  and  progress  along  every 
line  throughout  this  country. 

"As  a  man,  Dr.  Foote  was  so  modest  and 
retiring  that  to  the  multitude,  even  among 
his  beneficiaries,  he  is  scarcely  known,  lie- 
was  so  unpretentious  and  unaggressive  that 
individuals  and  the  public  alike  forgot  to 
repay  him  for  labor  and  means  expended  for 
their  benefit.  He  literally  devoted  his  time, 
his  energy,  his  life  to  the  cause  of  human 
liberty  that  was  so  dear  to  his  heart.  If  any 
man  ever  deserved  blessing  or  recognition 
for  his  benefactions,  our  deceased  friend  de- 
serves these  of  us,  and  that  our  appreciation 
should  impel  us  to  continue  the  good  work 
and  the  high  principles  that  were  the  dom- 
inating factors  of  his  life. 

"There  is  one  fact  that  I  want  to  impress 
upon  you — leave  with  you — and  that  is,  that 
of  the  Old  Guard  Liberals  only  a  few  of  us 
are  now  left.  It  should  be  our  main  pur- 
pose, our  sole  aim,  to  so  impress  the  mean- 
ing of  liberality  upon  those  about  us  that 
when  we  at  last  lay  down  our  arms  there 

31 


EDWARD   DOND  FOOTE 

shall  arise  a  host  to  follow  in  our  footsteps 
and  fight  in  our  places  for  the  cause  that  is 
dear  to  our  hearts. 

"If  we  are  makers  of  money,  very  well. 
Let  us  make  it  and  also  use  it  as  did  our 
fallen  comrade,  for  the  good  of  all.  I  re- 
call that  I  was  with  him  in  that  last  attempt 
for  a  Liberal  University — a  movement  that 
gained  a  footing  then  and  can  yet,  I  believe, 
be  brought  to  a  successful  fruition.  Those 
charters  obtained  in  the  States  of  Missouri 
and  Oregon  are  still  alive  and  can  be  used 
to  organize  and  continue  the  work  which 
Dr.  Foote,  Colonel  Ingersoll  and  others  then 
inaugurated.  Rational  human  progress  de- 
mands that  such  universities  be  opened  as 
a  practical  means  of  putting  all  science  at 
the  service  of  humanity,  of  making  science 
the  basis  of  human  life  and  action  and  that 
there  may  be  trained  men  and  women  every- 
where to  carry  on  the  work  of  secular  educa- 
tion in  a  rational,  liberal  way. 

"Every  Liberal  should  be  ashamed  that 
heretofore  all  efforts  toward  such  funda- 
mental, radical  enlightenment  of  mankind 
should  have  fallen  short,  come  to  naught, 
for  want  of  properly  equipped,  adequately 
trained  men  and  women,  no  less  than  for 
means  to  thus  uphold  the  standard  of  truth. 
It  is  in  such  times  that  we  feel  most  sorely 
the  loss  of  such  men  as  the  one  we  honor 
to-day.  Dr.  Foote,  with  Colonel  Ingersoll, 
Courtland  Palmer — men  whose  lives,  could 
they  have  been  continued  but  a  few  years 
longer,  would  have  notably  advanced  the 
new  education  and  the  progress  of  the  world 

32 


EDWARD  BOND   FOOTE 

— literally  gave  their  lives  to  the  Liberal 
cause.  If  only  their  scientific  methods  and 
their  zeal  can  be  continued,  the  cause  will  still 
live  and  will  become  the  impetus  of  a  new 
era  of  peace  and  progress  and  human  wel- 
fare not  only  in  the  history  of  this  country 
but  in  the  story  of  humanity  as  a  whole. 

"It  is  with  us  that  our  dead  friend,  Dr. 
Foote,  has  left  this  cause  that  was  so  dear 
to  him.  It  is  for  us,  for  you  here  before  me, 
to  supply  the  men  and  women  and  the  means 
to  carry  it  on.  Our  love  for  him  could  raise 
to  him  no  more  acceptable  monument  than 
new  leaders  to  continue  his  work — men  who 
can  take  his  place  and  complete  his  great 
aim  and  realize  the  great  end  which  the  Old 
Guard  of  the  Liberals  originated.  This  is 
the  work  I  leave  with  you — the  present  and 
the  rising  generation." 


33 


ADDRESS  BY   BOLTON   HALL 

(Lawyer  and  Author) 

"You  perhaps  remember  that  poem  of 
Maeterlinck's — for  it  is  no  less  a  poem  than 
a  drama — in  which  he  makes  the  children, 
seeing  again  their  grandparents,  childishly 
and  frankly  say  that  they  had  supposed  that 
the  old  people  were  dead.  And  then  the 
grandparents  say,  'No,  we  are  not  dead;  so 
long  as  any  one  speaks  of  us  we  live.'  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  that  is  really  sym- 
bolic of  life,  that  perhaps  as  we  look  in  our 
cemeteries  at  the  tablets  of  stone  or  bronze, 
it  is  not  these  that  perpetuate  our  deeds,  but 
that  as  long  as  there  is  any  memory  of  those 
whose  remains  lie  mouldering  underneath, 
as  long  as  the  name  Robert  Ingersoll  or 
Henry  George  or  Henry  Ward  Beecher  car- 
ries to  the  minds  of  men  some  thought  of 
what  manner  of  man  this  was,  what  he  did, 
what  he  thought,  what  he  gave  his  life  for, 
so  long  in  every  recurrent  mention  of  the 
name,  in  every  recurring  thought  of  the  per- 
son, that  person  still  lives. 

'And  again  in  the  same  poem  or  drama 
we  have  that  clear  vision  that  enables  a  poet 
to  crystallize  discussions  and  sayings,  when 

34 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

the  children  go  to  the  graveyard  together 
and  the  graves  open.  Instead  of  the  pallid 
corpses  or  the  pale  ghosts  that  the  children 
expected  to  see,  nothing  appears  and  the 
children  say  one  to  the  other,  'Why,  there 
are  no  dead.' 

"Practical  religion,  such  as  Mr.  Wake- 
man  has  been  telling  us  about,  and  practical 
science  alike,  teach  us  that  there  are  no  dead. 

"We  have  seen  life,  an  endless  flux  and 
reflux  of  life,  an  endless  repetition,  not  of 
death  but  of  revivification.  We  have  seen 
how  things  that  we  have  been  accustomed 
to  think  of  as  inert  matter — the  mineral 
kingdom — are  really  throbbing  and  thrilling 
with  the  same  crystallizing,  thought-pro- 
ducing, life-bearing  energy  that  inspires  and 
moves  the  whole  world.  We  know  how  the 
dead  silex  as  it  lies  in  the  field  is  taken  up 
and  made  to  form  the  hardness  and  the  stiff- 
ness of  the  stem  and  the  grain  of  wheat; 
taking  what  we  have  thought  of  as  dead  to 
form  life — vegetable  life.  We  have  seen  how 
the  grain  in  turn  ministers  to  human  life, 
passes  into  our  frames  and  becomes  the 
hardness  and  stiffness  of  our  bones.  The 
mineral  life  passes  into  vegetable  life  and 
the  vegetable  life  into  animal  life  by  insen- 
sible processes,  so  that  no  man  can  say 
where  death  ends  and  life  begins;  and  the 
process  still  goes  on  until  we  are  again  gath- 
ered to  our  mother,  the  earth,  and  the  un- 
ceasing round  begins  again,  when  thai  which 
was  alive  turns  once  more  into  material  like 
the  sandy  silex  and  wheels  once  more  its 
round. 

35 


EDWARD   IJOND   FOOTE 

"We  look  at  the  mineral  kingdom  and  we 
say  nothing  is  dead ;  then  we  look  at  the 
vegetable  kingdom  and  we  say  there  are  no 
dead ;  and  we  look  at  that  which  endures 
of  our  departed  friend — till  we  can  almost 
see  that  Spirit  rise  to-day  among  us,  and  we 
say  there  is  no  death.  Yet  I  know  there  is 
the  human  grief,  the  desolation,  the  empty 
longing  arms  and  the  breast  that  aches  for 
the  dear  familiar  weight. 

"For  these  philosophy  is  in  vain;  these 
nothing  helps  at  all  but  Love — that  Love 
that  we  come  here  to-day  to  show  forth  as 
best  we  may.  So  I  only  suggest  these  re- 
ligious thoughts  (because  philosophy  and 
religion  are  one),  well  knowing  that  words 
are  helpless,  helpless  to  change  the  course 
of  destiny,  helpless  to  bring  back  to  us  the 
person  and  the  face  that  we  so  sadly  miss. 

"Yet  what  is  it,  after  all,  that  we  miss? 
What  is  it  but  the  warm  touch  of  the  hands 
and  the  warm  feel  of  the  arms?  What  is 
that  thing  that  lived  with  us  before  we  came 
to  the  grave  and  that  goes  home  with  us 
afterwards?  It  is  that  kindliness,  that 
thought,  that  affection  which  are  indeed  the 
very  spirit  of  our  dead  friend.  That  thing 
which  has  its  influence,  which  does  not  de- 
pend upon  the  warmth  of  the  body  for  im- 
mortality, an  immortality  which  does  not 
even  depend  upon  the  memory  of  man  for 
its  being  nor  upon  the  body  for  its  life,  that 
true  thought,  that  kind  word,  that  gentle 
look,  that  loving  heart,  which  though  in- 
visible can  never  die,  as  Love  can  never  die. 

"So  we  came  here  to  speak  not  only  in 

36 


EDWARD   BOND    FOOTE 

general  terms  but  in  personal,  particular 
ways  of  one  of  whom  and  to  whom  these 
ideas  more  than  to  others  were  living,  vital 
truths — Dr.  Foote.  He  was  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  free  speech,  free  thought  and  free 
life,  although  not  an  aggressive  man  and 
well  aware  of  the  dangers  of  his  course,  yet 
he  went  on  and  worked  on  unshaken. 

"It  is  told  of  Napoleon  that  as  he  sat  on 
horseback  watching  his  troops  riding  into 
action  there  was  many  a  laugh  or  light  word 
from  the  lips  of  those  who  rode,  but  one 
young  officer  passed,  holding  tight  to  his 
horse,  pale,  and  with  his  lips  trembling. 
Some  of  the  officers  sneeringly  said,  'There 
goes  a  man  that  is  afraid.'  'No,'  said  Napo- 
leon, 'there  goes  the  bravest  man  in  my 
army.  He  knows  the  danger,  but  he  goes 
on.' 

"And  so  it  was  with  Dr.  Foote.  A  man 
of  naturally  nervous  temperament,  I  remem- 
ber how  he  came  to  me  once  for  some  legal 
help  because  he  had  received  a  decoy  letter 
from  the  unspeakable  Comstock  Society,  and 
I  remember  very  well  the  timorousness  and 
the  trepidation  with  which  he  spoke  about 
this  thing  and  the  danger  to  his  work  and 
activities.  Then  I  remember  still  better  how 
many  a  man  has  been  led  aside  by  that  most 
specious  of  arguments,  'Let  me  preserve  my 
standing,  let  me  keep  my  platform.'  Many 
a  man  would  have  said,  'This  is  not  the  time 
to  appear  in  radical  things  or  to  be  forward 
in  reform ;  it  would  be  wise  to  wait  a  little 
and  let  things  quiet  down.'  But  not  so  at 
all  with  Dr.  Foote,  his  force  and  his  purse 

37 


EDWARD    BOND   FOOTE 

were  as  much  at  the  disposal,  more  at  the 
disposal,  of  the  needy,  much  maligned  cause 
than  before  this  attempted  persecution  had 
begun.  And  what  Napoleon  said,  'There 
goes  a  man  who  knows  the  danger  and  still 
goes  on,'  recurred  to  me  as  I  talked  with 
Dr.  Foote.  This  was  a  man  who  understood 
the  fundamentals  of  reform,  the  reform  that 
must  begin  with  free  speech;  that  thing 
which  is  at  the  base  of  all  other  reforms, 
that  men  shall  be  able  to  communicate  freely 
with  each  other,  that  which  the  Spirit  has 
communicated  to  them;  a  man  who  saw  how 
all-important  it  is  that  all  men  should  be  able 
to  preach  and  to  teach  the  Kingdom  of  God 
that  is  within  them." 


38 


ADDRESS  BY  JAMES  F.   MORTON 

(Lawyer  and  Editor) 

"The  last  time  I  stood  upon  this  platform 
it  was  to  bear  my  share  of  tribute  to  Moses 
Harman,  one  of  the  pioneers  in  the  move- 
ment for  human  purity,  human  progress; 
and  our  meeting  to-day  is  to  draw  closer  the 
memories  that  cluster  about  one  of  the  other 
workers,  one  of  the  foremost  workers  in  that 
same  vital  cause,  Dr.  Edward  Bond  Foote. 

"Dr.  Foote  was  one  of  the  cleanest-minded 
men  whom  I  have  ever  known.  In  the  deep- 
est and  most  intimate  sense,  he  never  treated 
the  subject  of  sex  in  a  trivial  or  flippant  man- 
ner. As  a  matter  of  course,  being  one  of  the 
cleanest  and  purest-minded  of  men,  he  re- 
garded with  the  abhorrence  with  which  all 
clean-minded  men  and  women  must  regard 
it,  any  blasphemy  against  human  purity. 
Dr.  Foote  looked  upon  sex  as  the  key  to 
humanity,  which  should  be  clean  all  the  way 
through,  clean  in  body,  clean  in  mind,  clem 
in  desire,  aspiration,  clean  in  character;  and 
so  he  believed  in  the  deepest  sense  in  eugen- 
ics. If  there  was  any  one  subject  which 
seemed  to  dominate  his  work  it  was  eugen- 
ics. Although  his  heart  was  open  to  all  lib- 
eral causes  and  as  you  have  heard  here  to- 

39 


EDWARD   HON  I)   POOTE 


day  his  purse  was  always  open  and  he  took 
a  deep  interest  in  every  life  force  which 
seemed  in  any  way  capable  of  tending  to- 
ward human  progress,  yet  more  than  any 
other  the  subject  of  eugenics,  in  the  broadest 
sense,  fitted  in  with  every  wish  and  every 
interest  that  lay  close  to  his  heart.  Not  in 
the  sense  of  the  mere  passing  phase  of  the 
hour,  before  the  world  for  a  short  time  and 
then  to  pass  in  favor  of  some  other  fad,  but 
in  its  deepest  and  most  comprehensive  sense, 
he  believed  that  in  order  to  develop  correctly 
the  human  race,  human  beings  must  be  well 
born,  that  adverse  conditions  militate  against 
bringing  into  the  world  well-equipped  and 
healthy  children;  that  prenatal  conditions 
influence  the  personalities  to  be  produced; 
that  all  adverse  conditions  whether  they  be 
of  the  mind  or  of  the  body,  whether  they  be 
economic  or  psychological  or  superstitious, 
the  narrowness  of  prejudice  or  the  littleness 
of  aim  or  of  character,  should  be  eliminated. 
"Dr.  Foote  was  indifferent  to  censure,  in- 
different even  to  the  censure  of  those  whom 
he  loved  but  who  failed  to  understand  his 
motives ;  indifferent  to  those  who  take  words 
as  representing  realities  and  who  in  the 
name  of  purity  persecute  and  impress.  Dr. 
Foote  knew  the  slanderous  and  scandalous 
abuse  which  all  who  have  been  engaged  in 
the  wider  eugenic  movement  have  been  com- 
pelled to  undergo.  Dr.  Foote  unmasked  the 
hypocrisy  that  gave  Comstock  an  opportu- 
nity to  carry  on  his  work  by  sending,  within 
the  past  two  or  three  weeks,  a  committee  to 
the    Board    of    Education    denouncing    the 

40 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

teaching  of  sexual  hygiene  to  the  teachers 
in  our  public  schools,  declaring  that  it  was 
opposed  to  all  interests  of  sexual  hygiene, 
extending  beyond  the  scope  of  the  actually 
born  child.  He  stood  fearlessly  for  the  study 
of  sex,  in  its  fullest  meaning.  To  him  sex 
was  power,  pure  instinct  to  the  intensest  de- 
gree, as  the  means  by  which  nature  carries 
on  life  in  everything,  in  the  lives  of  all  be- 
ings, from  the  plant  to  the  human.  It  was 
to  him  intensely  pure;  it  was  to  be  studied 
— studied  carefully,  studied  earnestly,  and 
was  to  be  taught  in  the  deepest  and  fullest 
manner.  To  him  impurity  was  in  the  mind 
of  those  who  feared  to  teach  it.  He  looked 
upon  sex  as  he  looked  upon  other  manifesta- 
tions in  nature.  He  was  not  absorbed  in  it, 
with  a  mind  abnormally  fixed  upon  it,  hav- 
ing an  interest  in  its  outward  material  ex- 
pressions to  the  exclusion  of  other  interests. 
That  is  a  false  idea  which  has  been  falsely 
charged  against  eugenic  reformers  in  gen- 
eral. 

"To  Dr.  Foote,  sex  had  its  proper  place  in 
life  as  it  has  its  proper  function  with  other 
human  functions,  and  to  understand  its  right 
relations  was  to  forget  that  prurient  curios- 
ity and  that  attitude  of  mind  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  race.  To 
know  sex  properly  is  to  drop  all  false  prudery 
and  to  allow  sex  education  to  take  its  place. 
So  Dr.  Foote  was  a  eugenist;  he  was  a  neo- 
malthusian  as  lie  understood  the  term,  a  be- 
liever in  the  intelligent  control  of  the  pro- 
duction of  the  human  race;  not  with  merely 
a  few,  a  limited  number  of  individuals  to  be 

41 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

determined,  but  with  a  realization  of  the 
social  necessities  of  the  whole  for  a  higher 
and  better  civilization.  With  him  it  was  not 
how  many,  but  how  good;  not  how  numer- 
ous, but  how  in  the  best  and  most  fit  condi- 
tions; not  quantity,  but  quality. 

"Science  is  fully  disposed  to  accept  pioneer 
eugenics,  and  believes  that  it  is  more  impor- 
tant to  the  nation,  to  the  community,  more 
important  to  the  whole  human  race,  to  have 
the  child  born  under  the  best  possible  condi- 
tions, to  have  the  finest  type  of  human  being 
brought  into  the  world;  to  have  the  best  en- 
vironment possible  for  beings  born  into  the 
world.  Science  believes  that  it  is  best  to  de- 
termine the  men  and  women  who  are  to 
carry  on  the  work  of  civilization,  believes 
that  this  is  more  important  than  the  mere 
promiscuous  multiplication  of  human  be- 
ings, as  advocated  and  practiced  by  the  pop- 
ular and  more  or  less  demagogic  methods  of 
our  time. 

"Dr.  Foote  was  a  radical  eugenist  because 
he  believed  in  quality  more  than  quantity  in 
that  which  concerns  the  human  race.  Dr. 
Foote  was  throughout  his  life  an  apostle  of 
sex  sanity,  sex  balance,  sex  education.  He 
was  not  an  extremist;  he  believed  in  truth, 
in  the  whole  truth ;  he  believed  that  all  those 
who  had  any  thought  to  contribute  on  this 
most  vital  subject  should  be  heard.  It  re- 
mains for  us  to  carry  on  the  truth  he  fought 
for  until  the  world  becomes  enlightened  and 
purified  and  the  foundations  are  well  and 
truly  laid  for  a  higher,  purer  and  better  de- 
velopment of  humanity." 

42 


ADDRESS   BY   LEONARD  D.   ABBOTT 

(Author  and  Associate  Editor  of 
Current  Opinion) 

"We  commemorate  to-day  something  that 
is  rare  in  this  world,  a  man  of  principle.  We 
also  commemorate  a  philanthropist  in  the 
true  and  original  sense  of  that  word — one 
who  loves  his  fellow  man. 

"Every  great  man  is  many-sided.  He  can- 
not be  easily  summed  up.  Dr.  Foote's  ac- 
tivities were  felt  in  many  fields.  My  own 
most  intimate  association  with  him  was  in 
connection  with  the  Thomas  Paine  National 
Historical  Association.  That  Association 
was  very  dear  to  his  heart,  and  he  gave  a 
great  deal  of  money  and  time  to  it.  Many  of 
those  present  have  seen  the  little  house  at 
New  Rochelle  in  which  Thomas  Paine  lived. 
Dr.  Foote  turned  it  into  a  Paine  museum  and 
set  in  it  a  life-sized  statue  of  Paine.  W.  M. 
van  der  Weyde  helped  in  this  work,  gather- 
ing books  and  making  photographs  for  the 
museum.  I  regard  this  as  the  most  interest- 
ing free-thought  institution  in  the  country. 
I  think  the  free-thinkers  of  America  ought 
to  see  that  this  place  is  preserved  in  per- 
petuity.    T  hope  they  will. 

43 


EDWARD    IJOND   FOOTK 

"Another  cause  in  which  Dr.  Foote  and 
I  were  associated  was  the  fight  for  free 
speech  for  Radicals. 

"About  five  years  ago  a  prominent  anar- 
chist was  giving  a  lecture  in  this  city.  Her 
meeting  was  suppressed  by  the  police  and  her 
audience  driven  from  the  hall.  This  was  one 
of  the  most  flagrant  outrages  on  free  speech 
of  which  I  know.  A  committee  was  formed 
to  defend  the  rights  of  the  "Queen  of  anar- 
chism" and  of  any  one  else — to  utter  their 
convictions  in  public.  Dr.  Foote  was  so  con- 
cerned in  this  fight  that  he  offered  us  his 
office  to  meet  in.  He  gave  us  his  counsel  and 
also  contributed  money.  He  was  one  of  the 
factors  that  finally  broke  down  this  police 
prosecution  because  he  showed  the  world 
that  there  are  clean  people  willing  to  fight 
for  the  rights  of  even  the  "most  despised." 

"Dr.  Foote  was  one  of  those  who  were 
deeply  interested  in  the  martyrdom  of  Fran- 
cisco Ferrer,  the  founder  of  the  Modern 
Schools  in  Spain.  He  said,  'It  is  a  new  case 
like  that  of  Giordano  Bruno,'  and  he  was 
right.  The  killing  of  Ferrer  at  Barcelona 
three  years  ago  was  perhaps  the  most  not- 
able case  of  martyrdom  for  an  idea  since 
Bruno.  When  a  school  in  memory  of  Ferrer 
was  started  in  this  city  one  of  the  first  two 
financial  contributions  came  from  Dr.  Foote. 

"Then  there  was  the  case  of  Kotoku  and 
the  Japanese  Anarchists.  Twelve  Japanese 
Anarchists  were  executed  in  Tokyo  in  Jan- 
uary, 191 1,  after  a  secret  trial.  Their  execu- 
tion took  from  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning 
until  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.     Twelve 

44 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 

more  were  imprisoned  for  life.  The  full  de- 
tails of  this  extraordinary  case  are  not 
known  even  yet,  but  we  know  that  the  kill- 
ing of  Kotoku  and  his  comrades  was  a  ter- 
rible crime  against  humanity  and  against 
liberty.  When  a  group  of  radicals  were 
fighting  in  America  to  save  Kotoku  and  his 
comrades  from  the  gallows,  Dr.  Foote  gave 
his  moral  and  financial  support. 

"Dr.  Foote  was  interested  in  the  free 
speech  fights  conducted  by  the  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World  in  Spokane,  in  Fres- 
no, California,  and  other  Western  cities.  He 
did  not  always  agree  with  the  tactics  of  the 
I.W.W.,  but  when  the  principle  of  free 
speech  was  involved,  his  time  and  his  purse 
could  be  depended  on. 

"I  am  glad  that  the  chairman  to-day  has 
given  me  the  subject:  'He  Defended  the 
Right  to  Differ.'  There  are  only  a  few  men 
who  are  brave  enough  to  defend  the  right  to 
express  opinions  they  do  not  agree  with,  to 
defend  free  speech  as  a  principle.  Dr.  Foote 
was  such  a  man.  He  did  not  ask  whether 
he  saw  eye  to  eye  with  a  man  before  he 
would  help  him.  He  had  the  large  convic- 
tion that  there  could  not  be  real  progress  in 
the  world  unless  we  each  one  of  us  have  the 
undeniable  right  to  express  the  truth  as  we 
see  it. 

"He  is  well  described  as  one  whose  mis- 
sion was  to  uproot  superstition  and  to  up- 
hold individual  liberty." 


4-5 


ADDRESS     BY     EDWIN    C.     WALKER 

(Author  and  Editor) 

"It  seems  to  me  that  the  five  most  char- 
acteristic elements  of  Dr.  'Ned'  Foote's  tem- 
perament and  intellect  were  generosity, 
genial  kindliness,  a  sense  of  humor,  a  watch- 
ful love  of  freedom  of  expression,  and  judi- 
cial fairness. 

"Those  slim,  white  fingers  were  always 
tempted  to  slip  into  the  right-hand  lower 
pocket  of  his  waistcoat  to  draw  out  a  five 
or  ten  or  twenty  for  some  sufferer  or  some 
child  of  poverty  or  a  cause  that  was  in 
straits.  And  quite  surely  he  had  early 
learned  to  act  in  the  spirit  of  the  principle 
later  enunciated  by  Hugh  O.  Pentecost, 
'The  way  to  overcome  temptation  is  to  yield 
to  it.'  So  the  slim,  white  fingers  very,  very 
often  had  their  way  and  came  out  attached 
to  a  "V"  or  something  larger,  for  all  the 
one's  and  two's  were  in  some  other  pocket, 
apparently.  And  when  a  larger  sum  was 
needed  or  the  beneficiary  was  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  long  arm,  the  check-book  lost 
a  leaf. 

"This  man,  so  early  passed  from  among 
us,  was  the  almoner  of  Liberalism  in  Amer- 

46 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

ica.  Other  men  of  progressive  ideas  have 
had  more  and  a  few  have  given  much,  but 
no  other,  I  am  convinced,  ever  has  given  so 
frequently,  so  widely,  so  timely,  and  so  dis- 
criminatingly and  justly.  His  assistance 
has  strengthened  many  a  weary  arm,  kindled 
hope  anew  in  many  a  despairing  heart,  and 
renewed  the  well-nigh  exhausted  activity  of 
many  a  tired  brain.  So  often,  too,  the  keen, 
quaint,  "battling"  letters  that  went  with  the 
spontaneous  gifts  were  in  themselves  elixirs 
of  cheer  and  courage  and  determination. 

"The  kindly  smile,  the  quizzical  inquiry 
or  assent  of  the  eyes,  the  genial  friendliness 
of  the  whole  attitude,  so  familiar  to  all  who 
knew  him,  remain  among  memory's  sweet- 
est possessions.  He  was  a  most  charming 
companion  in  automobile  trips  through  the 
woods  or  in  his  launch  on  the  Sound,  despite 
the  growing  deafness  that  made  conversa- 
tion extremely  difficult  in  later  years,  and 
that  toward  the  last  kept  him  away  from 
nearly  all  meetings.  But  wherever  he  was, 
the  tender  smile,  the  responsive  eyes,  spoke 
the  language  of  understanding  and  com- 
radeship, and  so  words  were  not  missed  so 
much. 

"Our  friend's  wit  and  his  sense  of  humor 
were  keen  and  ebullient.  A  confirmed  pun- 
ster, he  caught  every  possibility  for  a  "hit." 
Gentle  satire  was  not  a  stranger  to  his 
tongue  or  pen,  while  the  enemies  of  liberty 
felt  often  the  sting  of  his  sarcasm.  He  had 
a  pretty  fancy  for  farce  with  a  purpose,  as 
all  must  confess  who  experienced  the  delight 
of  seeing  and  hearing  him  at  the  Manhattan 

47 


EDWARD   BOND   POOTB 

Liberal  Club  that  night  in  the  dual  role  of 
Rev.  Dr.  Parkhurst  and  himself,  turning 
first  one  and  tben  tbe  otber  side  to  the  au- 
dience as  he  carried  alone  the  witty  and  cut- 
ting dialogue. 

"His  service  to  the  cause  of  freedom  of 
speech  and  press  was  incalculable.  His 
father  and  himself  may  almost  be  said  to 
have  been  for  years  the  heart  and  soul  and 
purse  of  the  National  Defense  Association 
and  the  Free  Speech  League.  The  so-called 
Comstock  Postal  Statutes,  enacted  in  March, 
1873,  and  strengthened  later  by  various 
amendments,  marked  not  only  the  beginning 
of  a  'movement  in  favor  of  ignorance,'  as 
C.  L.  James  tersely  described  it,  but  also  a 
movement  in  favor  of  disease,  the  deeper 
subjection  of  wives,  of  abortion,  and  unde- 
sired  and  misery-destined  children.  The 
senior  Dr.  Foote  was  early  a  victim  of  the 
Censor's  density  or  malice,  and  during  all 
their  after  years,  father  and  son  lived  in  con- 
stant apprehension  of  the  destruction  of 
their  publishing  plant,  the  strangling  of 
their  great  enterprise  of  enlightenment  and 
humanity.  But  neither  faltered  in  his  work, 
and  they  left  a  legacy  of  devotion  and  money 
that  still  is  supporting  and  long  will  sup- 
port the  cause  they  loved  and  served  while 
living. 

"To  Moses  Harman,  they  and  other  men  of 
means  they  enlisted  for  the  campaign  against 
medievalism,  gave  much  money  and  im- 
measurably valuable  moral  assistance.  It  is 
no  disparagement  of  the  zeal  and  helpfulness 
of  his  other  friends  to  say  that  Harman,  in 

48 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 

all  probability,  would  have  been  beaten  to 
the  earth  long  before  his  heroic  struggle 
ended  in  death  had  it  not  been  for  the  up- 
holding hands  of  Dr.  Ned  Foote.  Anarch- 
ists and  other  assailed  reformers  have  much 
reason  to  remember  him  with  respect  and 
gratitude.  His  first  question  was  not,  'Do 
I  accept  all  this  man  or  woman  is  trying  to 
teach?'  but,  'Has  he  or  she  the  right  to  en- 
deavor to  change  the  opinions  of  others 
through  peaceful  instruction  and  is  the  ex- 
ercise of  that  right  denied?'  He  knew  that 
many  propagandists  would  say,  were  saying, 
foolish  things,  but  he  knew  also  that  the  best 
answer,  sometimes  the  only  answer,  to  their 
foolishness  was  the  expression  of  it.  He 
held  stanchly  that  fresh  air  and  sunlight  are 
cheap  and  excellent  disinfectants  in  the 
realm  of  thought  as  elsewhere. 

"It  has  taken  more  years  to  teach  some 
of  us  than  were  required  in  the  case  of  Dr. 
Foote.  I  think  he  was  the  fairest  speaker  I 
have  ever  heard.  At  the  Manhattan  Liberal 
Club,  the  Sunrise  Club,  at  meetings  in  his 
parlors,  and  elsewhere,  it  was  quite  common 
in  the  nineties  and  even  later  to  cavil  at 
what  we  called  his  hair-splitting  and  fence- 
balancing.  To  change  from  these  to  an- 
other figure,  we  wanted  him  to  swallow  this 
or  that  social  gospel  in  bulk,  without  com- 
parison, analysis,  or  reservation.  The  truth 
is,  he  was  maturing  earlier  than  we  were, 
myself  included;  he  realized  sooner  that 
there  are  at  least  two  sides  to  every  ques- 
tion, that  the  diamond  of  truth  has  many 
facets,   that   no   person   or   party   is   wholly 

49 


EDWARD    BOND   FOOTE 

right  or  wholly  wrong,  that  the  social  world 
is  kept  in  its  orbit  by  the  constant  opposing 
action  of  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal 
forces.  So  he  rarely  made  an  all-around 
partizan  speech — never,  perhaps,  save  when 
defending  freedom  of  inquiry  or  inveighing 
against  vaccination — he  ever  sought  to 
reach  a  conclusion  by  a  balanced  statement 
of  the  arguments  for  and  against  a  propo- 
sition. The  hesitation  we  censured  as 
'weather-vaning'  was  born,  not  of  timid- 
ity, but  of  a  knowledge  wider  than  our  own, 
of  a  keener  realization  of  two  facts — that 
every  effect  has  many  causes,  and  that  every 
proposed  reform,  if  successful,  will  only  in 
part  realize  the  dream  out  of  whose  womb 
it  came,  and  among  its  good  results  will 
bring  some  that  are  the  opposite  of  good. 

"Of  course,  Dr.  Foote  was  not  a  pioneer,  in 
the  absolute  sense,  in  the  movement  for  the 
open  and  thorough  discussion  of  the  ques- 
tions of  sex  and  marriage.  To  find  these, 
we  must  go  back  to  Wollstonecraft,  Shelley, 
Godwin,  or  further  yet.  But  he  was  a  pio- 
neer, as  contrasted  with  the  multitudes  that 
now  are  hailed  as  the  pathfinders  in  eugen- 
ics. Beside  him,  his  contemporaries,  and 
their  predecessors  of  the  generation  before, 
most  of  these  teachers  of  to-day  are  but 
babes  in  arms.  The  vast  majority  of  them 
do  not  know  it  and  even  some  of  the  sur- 
vivors of  the  'Old  Guard'  are  apt  to  forget 
it  in  their  exultation  due  to  the  rapid  spread 
of  interest  in  and  acceptance  of  public  dis- 
cussion of  marriage  and  divorce,  eugenics 
and  prostitution.     What  the  Chicago    Trib- 

50 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

une,  the  Cincinnati  Commercial-Tribune,  the 
Cincinnati  Post,  the  New  York  Globe,  The 
Critic  and  Guide,  and  many  other  papers  and 
magazines  can  print  and  are  printing  to-day 
dazes  and  terrifies  the  standpatters  of  mor- 
als and  sociology,  but  it  joyfully  amazes 
those  of  us  who  remember  what  conditions 
were  thirty,  twenty,  ten,  five  years  ago. 

"Yea,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
many  of  these  editors  and  business  man- 
agers would  not  have  consented  one  year 
ago  to  the  appearance  of  such  plain  writing 
in  the  columns  of  their  publications.  Would 
that  our  friend  could  have  lived  one  year 
longer  than  he  did!  It  would  greatly  have 
cheered  and  comforted  him  to  realize  some- 
thing of  the  cumulative  and  transforming 
effects  of  his  decades  of  struggle  for  the 
spreading  of  the  light.  The  tiny  taper  that 
others  had  lit  went  nearly  out  many  times 
in  the  centuries  of  storm;  he  and  his  con- 
temporaries bound  other  tapers  with  it  and 
the  feeble  blaze  quickened  a  little  and  en- 
larged. At  last  it  became  torch  and  kindling 
for  the  black  fuel  in  the  furnaces  where  is 
generated  the  active  power  that  throws  the 
light  of  millions  of  incandescents  and  arcs 
into  the  secret  places  of  vice,  disease,  and 
slavery,  and  brings  into  high  relief  on  the 
columns  of  righteous  fame  the  names  of  the 
men  and  women  who  in  poverty  and  miscon- 
ception and  persecution  labored  and  suffered 
and  died  that  this  morning  of  partial  under- 
standing and  nascent  justice  might  come 
to  the  world.  And  among  those  names  is 
that  of  the  man  for  whom  we  who  contrib- 

51 


EDWAKI)   IiOND   FOOTE 


utc  to  this  Memorial  bring  words  of  appre- 
ciation and  loving  memory,  Edward  Bond 
Foote." 


52 


ADDRESS  BY 
DR.  JOHN  LOVEJOY  ELIOT 

(Of  the  Society  for  Ethical  Culture) 

"The  philanthropy  of  Dr.  Foote  had  this 
vital  characteristic  of  philanthropy:  it  was 
absolutely  genuine.  In  these  days  when  so 
many  are  giving  because  it  will  in  some  way 
advance  their  own  interests,  in  some  way 
redound  to  their  own  credit,  it  is  nothing 
less  than  inspiring  to  find  the  record  of  a 
man  who  gave  with  no  notion  of  any  benefit 
that  he  would  receive,  gave  sincerely  for  the 
sake  of  the  cause  to  which  he  made  the  dona- 
tion, and  not  for  his  own  sake. 

"When  one  reads  over  the  long  list  of  his 
benefactions,  another  important  fact  is 
brought  to  light — the  great  variety  of  his 
interests.  He  was  not  a  man  who  simply 
had  a  'pet  charity,'  who  was  interested  in 
building  up  a  single  institution  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  all  other  causes.  To  be  sure,  it  was 
mostly  to  liberal  institutions  that  he  made 
gifts.  If  he  had  a  single  cause  at  heart  it 
may  be  said  that  it  was  that  of  liberty.  It 
was  at  the  shrine  of  liberty  that  he  wor- 
shiped and  to  that  altar  he  brought  his  gifts. 
Tn  his  offerings  to  liberty,  both  of  his  means 
and  his  time,  he  has  set  for  us  all  a  shining 
mark.     Those  of  us  who  have  borne  even  a 

53 


EDWARD    HOND    FOOTE 

very  humble  part  in  this  great  cause  must 
feel  both  for  ourselves  and  for  that  cause  a 
deep  sense  of  loss  in  the  death  of  this  man. 

"Those  of  us  who  have  hoped  with  Lincoln 
that  'The  time  may  come  when  the  burden 
would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  men 
and  all  would  have  an  equal  chance,'  those 
of  us  who  have  seen  the  burden  upon  the 
shoulders  of  others  and  have  felt  it  upon 
our  own,  must  indeed  feel  deeply  the  loss 
of  such  a  comrade,  friend,  co-worker  and 
leader  in  the  cause  of  liberty  and  free  speech, 
and  it  is  well  for  us  to  come  together  here 
to-day  and  for  our  own  sake  to  remember 
him  that  we  may  be  inspired  to  keep  alive 
his  fight. 

"The  question  always  comes  to  my  mind 
at  such  a  time,  'What  should  we  do  for  those 
who  have  gone  before?'  What  can  we  do? 
Our  hands  are  so  feeble,  our  time  is  so  brief, 
our  power  is  so  limited.  It  seems  to  me, 
however,  that  there  is  one  thing  that  we 
can  do.  We  can  endeavor  to  understand 
those  who  have  gone,  even  better  after  they 
have  gone  than  ever  we  did  in  life — to  see 
them  again  in  memory,  to  let  the  true  effect 
of  their  lives  come  home  to  us,  to  believe  in 
them  more  loyally  than  we  ever  did  before. 

"If  there  is  anything  that  we  can  do  it  is 
just  this,  to  keep  in  touch  with  them  and 
with  the  eternal  truths  of  life.  And  we 
ought  not  to  go  away  from  here  without 
being  strengthened  in  the  holy  cause  of  lib- 
erty, without  having  our  sympathy,  our  un- 
derstanding, our  generosity,  our  faithfulness 
rekindled  by  the  memory  of  Dr.  Foote." 

54 


ADDRESS  BY 
REV.  WILLIAM  THURSTON  BROWN 

"I  did  not  know  Dr.  Foote  personally,  as 
I  suppose  those  did  who  have  preceded  me; 
and  yet  I  sometimes  think  and  feel  that  I 
knew  him  very  well,  although  my  only  ac- 
quaintance with  him  was  through  a  little 
correspondence  in  1910. 

"After  leaving  the  Unitarian  Church  in 
which  I  had  hoped  to  do  work  which  did 
not  depend  upon  tradition — liberal  work — 
I  organized  in  Salt  Lake  City  the  Modern 
School,  naming  it  after  the  work  of  Ferrer. 
When  Dr.  Foote  learned  of  this  venture  in 
Salt  Lake  City,  he  voluntarily  sent  me  his 
check.  There  was  an  unusual  cheer  and 
inspiration  in  his  communications,  in  his 
letters. 

"I  was  deeply  impressed  by  the  address 
made  at  the  beginning  of  this  meeting  by 
perhaps  the  oldest  man  on  the  platform,  the 
oldest  representative  of  the  Free  Thought 
movement  here  in  New  York.  The  thing 
which  he  was  thinking  about  was,  What  is 
to  come  of  all  this?  What  are  we  going  to 
do?  Where  are  the  men  to  come  from  and 
where  are  the  means  to  come  from  which 
shall  carry  on  the  work  which  has  been  in 
other  hands  hitherto?    There  is  in  that  sug- 

55 


EDWARD    IIOND   FOOTK 

gestion,  to  my  mind,  the  one  thing  which 
can  at  all  justify  this  meeting,  or  any  other 
meeting,  giving  tribute  to  Dr.  E.  B.  Foote. 
We  can  do  him  no  good  by  what  we  say 
about  him  here.  We  do  ourselves  good,  to 
be  sure,  by  what  we  say,  by  what  we  think; 
and  it  is  a  good  thing  for  us  even  in  this  in- 
adequate way  to  express  some  appreciation 
of  what  he  did. 

"But  the  only  way,  the  only  lasting  way, 
the  only  sure  way  in  which  we  can  pay  any 
tribute  to  him  is  by  continuing  the  work  for 
which  he  stood.  The  man  goes,  but  the 
whole  situation  of  the  Free  Speech,  Free 
Thought  movement  remains,  and  it  is  only 
by  facing  this  situation  and  dealing  with  it, 
that  we  can  show  that  we  are  sensitive  to 
the  deeper  and  finer  meaning  of  Dr.  Foote's 
life,  of  this  whole  movement  and  that  we  are 
responsive  to  every  phase  of  it.  Dr.  Foote 
did  not  insist  that  a  man  or  woman  should 
represent  only  that  which  bore  high  repute, 
nor  only  that  for  which  he  himself  had 
stood;  he  recognized  a  Free  Thinker  under 
no  particular  label.  And  I  think  the  time  is 
coming  when  the  work  of  the  Free  Thought 
Society  will  be  carried  out.  Emma  Gold- 
man has  spoken  splendid  words  and  has 
done  splendid  work  for  Free  Thought,  Free 
Speech.  There  is  no  question  about  that, 
and  we  should  be  proud  to  recognize  it.  And 
yet  at  the  same  time  it  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  room  and  place  and  need  to  do  more, 
to  build  a  platform  upon  which  there  shall 
be  entire  Freedom,  upon  which  there  shall 
be  no  necessity  of  omitting  this  or  that  or 

56 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

the  other  phase  of  freedom.  That  is  the 
way,  or  one  of  the  ways,  in  which  we  can 
really  pay  our  tribute  to  the  man  who  stood 
for  freedom  of  every  phase. 

"Free  Thought  is  not  Dr.  Foote's  cause 
at  all,  and  if  we  say  it  or  think  it  to  be  Dr. 
Foote's  cause  we  mistake.  It  is  the  cause 
of  humanity,  the  cause  of  the  school  chil- 
dren of  New  York  City,  the  cause  of  this 
city  and  of  other  cities;  the  cause  of  the 
emancipation  of  the  poor  devils  of  all  sorts 
who  are  in  enslavement  of  any  kind.  Only 
as  we  see  the  cause  in  its  true  light  can  we 
do  the  work  which  shall  really  show  that 
we  mean  what  we  "say  when  we  pay  our 
tribute  to  Dr.  Foote. 

"I  attended  a  memorial  meeting,  or  rather 
a  centenary  meeting,  in  honor  of  Lincoln  in 
Salt  Lake  City  in  1909.  I  think  most  of  you 
will  agree  with  me  as  I  sum  up  the  impres- 
sions which  I  received  from  that  meeting 
or  from  the  two  principal  speakers  at  that 
meeting.  One  of  them  was  a  lawyer,  who 
thought  more  of  precedent  than  he  did  of 
equity.  He  did  not  say  one  single  word 
from  beginning  to  end  about  equity,  but  if 
Lincoln  stood  for  anything  as  a  lawyer  he 
stood  for  equity.  That  was  the  side  of  the 
law  that  he  was  interested  in.  Now  this 
man  was  there  as  the  friend  of  Lincoln,  as 
an  intimate  associate  of  Lincoln.  He  had 
lived  with  him  in  Springfield,  111.,  and  yet 
apparently  knew  him  less  than  any  other 
man  on  the  platform.  He  had  seen  the  man 
nominated  at  Chicago,  in  i860,  but  he  did 
not  say  that  Lincoln  was  nominated  by  a 

57 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

political  machine  that  was  just  as  rotten  as 
any  other,  and  he  did  not  say  a  thing  that 
gave  us  light  on  the  natural  Lincoln. 

"Another  of  the  principal  speakers  was 
the  Governor  of  the  State — a  man  who  was 
a  political  tool,  a  stand-patter  and  one  who 
could  be  used  by  the  unscrupulous  politi- 
cians of  the  State.  Neither  of  these  men 
could  say  anything  about  Lincoln.  They 
did  not  know  the  real  Lincoln.  It  was  not 
a  memorial  to  Lincoln.  Only  men  who  were 
in  sympathy  with  Lincoln  could  know  the 
man;  only  such  men  could  pay  any  tribute 
to  him.  And  so  I  say  to-day  we  can  honor 
Dr.  Foote  only  as  we  feel  the  same  large 
interest  which  he  felt;  only  as  we  see  clearly 
and  feel  deeply  the  facts  and  problems  of 
society  about  us,  the  vital  issues  in  sym- 
pathetic response  to  which  his  life  became 
a  benediction  and  a  blessing." 


58 


Theodore  Schroeder,  author,  and 
attorney  for  the  Free  Speech  League, 
also  spoke  at  this  Memorial  Meeting 
as  well  as  upon  a  similar  occasion 
before  the  Brooklyn  Philosophical 
Society,  and  elsewhere.  The  sub- 
stance of  his  remarks  is  incorporated 
in  the  opening  paper  of  this  volume. 
From  the  many  letters  written  at  the 
time  of  Dr.  Footers  death  and  upon 
the  occasion  of  the  Memorial  Meet- 
ing, the  following  extracts  have  been 
culled. 


A  LETTER  FROM  MARY  F.  W ATKINS 

It  was  my  privilege  during  many  years  to 
act  as  amanuensis  for  the  late  Edward  Bond 
Foote,  and  for  his  father,  Edward  Bliss 
Foote.  This  association  gave  me  an  insight 
into  their  principles  and  life  work,  which  I 
could  have  obtained  in  no  other  way,  and 
every  day  was  an  education  in  itself.  I  have 
always  felt  an  inexpressible  gratitude  that 
such  privilege  was  mine. 

In  the  Foote  family  album  there  was  a 
small  photo  portrait  of  Doctor  Ned,  as  he 
was  familiarly  addressed,  taken  when  he  was 
a  lad  of  eleven  or  twelve  years.  The  picture 
represents  him  standing,  and  at  first  sight 
gave  me  then  the  impression  of  unusual  man- 
liness in  the  child,  and  ever  after,  when  I 
chanced  to  see  it.  His  countenance  at  that 
early  age  was  an  unerring  index  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  man  of  mature  years.  Through- 
out his  life  the  manliness  was  prominent. 

From  my  earliest  remembrance  of  Dr. 
Foote  his  life  was  one  of  eternal  vigilance  in 
the  cause  nearest  his  heart ;  that  of  uprooting 
superstition,  and  the  preservation  of  individ- 
ual liberty.  He  kept  in  constant  touch  with 
the  transactions  of  Congress  and  the  State 
Legislature,  so  that  when  attempts  were 
made  to  pass  laws  interfering  with  freedom 
of  speech,  press  and  mails,  he  put  his  whole 
heart  and  soul  into  the  fight  to  defeat  all  such 
Legislation.  He  stood  boldly  for  medical 
freedom  and  strongly  opposed  any  move- 
ment suggestive  of  a  doctors'  trust. 

While  others  slept  or  played,  he  was  fre- 
quently working  far  into  the  night,  giving 

60 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

his  thought  to  his  professional  business,  and 
to  the  liberal  work  which  engaged  so  much 
of  his  time  and  attention. 

His  strong  sense  of  justice  led  him  always 
to  the  defense  of  the  oppressed.  In  the  light 
of  circumstances  as  they  appeared  to  him,  his 
judgment  was  always  just.  He  saw  the 
needs  of  humanity  with  a  clear  breadth  of 
vision  that  not  one  in  a  thousand  could  ap- 
proach. His  ideals  were  so  far  in  advance  of 
the  average  individual,  that  in  future  genera- 
tions his  name  will  be  written  in  letters  of 
gold,  as  one  who  loved  his  fellow  men. 

Personally,  he  was  modest,  and  absolutely 
free  from  ostentation  and  pretense  of  any 
kind.  His  habits  of  industry,  thrift,  and 
economy,  combined  with  a  sympathetic  and 
generous  nature,  resulted  in  the  management 
of  his  affairs  so  that  when  a  tale  of  distress 
appealed  to  him,  as  often  happened,  he  al- 
ways gave  financial  assistance  to  the  un- 
fortunate one.  While  many  were  apprecia- 
tive and  worthy,  unscrupulous  people  some- 
times imposed  upon  him.  A  plausible  talker 
could  always  hold  his  attention,  and,  being 
the  embodiment  of  sincerity  himself,  the  in- 
sincerity of  others  was  not  readily  apparent 
to  him. 

His  mode  of  living  was  very  simple;  he 
was  content  with  just  enough  of  the  com- 
forts of  life,  without  indulging  in  anything 
like  follies  or  extravagances.  Of  the  small 
vices  so  common  to  men  in  general,  he  had 
none.  His  genial  personality,  expressed  in 
a  keen  sense  of  humor,  attracted  to  him  many 
friends.     In  his  play  days  at  Larchmont,  he 

61  * 


EDWARD   UOND   FOOTE 

liked  to  invite  friends  to  share  his  pleasures, 
and  he  never  cared  to  drive  or  sail  alone. 

There  was  a  strong-  bond  of  affection  be- 
tween father  and  son.  In  troubled  moments, 
he  was  his  father's  staunch  supporter  and 
comforter. 

I  remember  calling  at  his  city  home  about 
a  year  ago,  to  see  him,  and  found  him  resting 
on  a  couch,  very  weak  looking,  and  feeling 
discouraged.  He  said  he  felt  himself  losing 
ground.  Mrs.  Foote,  whose  untiring  devo- 
tion anticipated  his  every  wish,  was  in  and 
out;  and  as  she  passed  from  the  room,  he 
turned  to  me  and  said,  with  much  tenderness 
of  expression :  "She  is  a  great  little  woman !" 

As  he  grew  weaker,  he  faced  the  inevi- 
table with  the  calm  cheerfulness  of  a  brave 
soul,  and  he  remained  a  philosopher  to  the 
end. 

A  LETTER  FROM  LILLIAN   HARMAN 

"My  personal  recollections  of  the  interest 
manifested  by  Dr.  Foote  in  the  work  of 
Moses  Harman  and  Lucifer  extend  back  to 
my  young  girlhood  in  the  early  eighties.  I 
think  both  father  and  son  were  subscribers 
almost  from  the  first  issue.  I  used  to  read 
their  Health  Monthly  which  they  sent  my 
father,  and  I  remember  reading,  at  the  age 
of  thirteen,  "Plain  Home  Talk,"  a  present 
to  my  father  from  the  author — which  work 
has  had  a  great  influence  on  my  life  to  this 
day.  Both  doctors  were  always  very  friend- 
ly to  Lucifer,  but  after  the  cessation  of  the 
publication  of  the  Health  Monthly  they 
seemed  almost  'silent  partners'  in  the  pub- 

62 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

lication  of  the  paper — so  warm  was  their 
interest,  so  ready  their  words  of  cheer  and 
their  financial  assistance.  In  all  the  years 
of  government  persecution  they  were  stanch 
supporters  of  my  father,  and  it  is  hard  to 
realize  that  the  hands  that  penned  the  let- 
ters lying  before  me  can  never  write  again. 

"It  is  almost  impossible  to  dissociate  Dr. 
Foote,  St.,  and  Dr.  Foote,  Jr.,  in  my  mind. 
In  their  letters,  when  one  wrote,  he  always 
spoke  for  the  other,  too.  Their  professional 
work  brought  them  into  contact  with  thou- 
sands of  ruined  lives  which  could  have  been 
saved  by  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  sex,  and 
so  they  worked  together  and  welcomed  and 
encouraged  every  struggling  emissary  of  en- 
lightenment. 

"In  '86  Dr.  Ned  wrote  his  little  book, 
'The  Radical  Remedy  in  Social  Science.' 

"  'We  want,'  he  says,  'a  sufficient  educa- 
tion in  the  science  of  private  and  public 
hygiene  and  morals,  and  especially  in  the 
direction  of  sex,  reproduction  and  heredity, 
which  shall  be  so  general  that  every  man  and 
woman  at  the  age  of  puberty  shall  know 
enough,  and  be  religiously  inclined,  to  guard 
against  crippling  himself  or  herself,  the  fam- 
ily or  society,  by  indulging  in  vice  of  any 
kind,  and  particularly  that  of  reckless  propa- 
gation. 

"  'That  is  the  radical  remedy,  a  thorough 
one,  and  Utopian  enough  for  the  most  de- 
vout optimist.  Even  though  it  be  an  elec- 
tric beacon  in  whose  bright  light  we  may 
not  hope  to  bask,  as  'neath  the  noonday  sun, 
yet  for  us  its  dim  rays  already  show  the  way 

63 


EDWARD    HOND   FOOTE 

to  brighter  days,  and  point  out  the  line  of 
progress  we  should  pursue.' 

"This  book  had  a  wide  circulation,  and 
surely  had  its  influence  on  the  thought  of 
our  time.  The  world  is  coming  his  way  now. 
His  remedy  does  not  seem  so  startling  as  it 
did  in  '86.  A  few  years  later,  when  I  first  met 
Dr.  Ned,  he  took  me  for  a  drive  through  the 
country  lanes  near  his  Larchmont  home,  and 
past  the  Paine  Monument — a  well-known 
object  of  his  interest  and  solicitude. 

"He  told  me  the  story  of  the  writing  of 
the  'Radical  Remedy.'  He  said  he  felt  at 
the  time  that  he  had  only  a  few  months  to 
live,  and  that  this  message  was  the  most  im- 
portant legacy  he  could  leave  and  so  devoted 
his  remaining  strength  to  this  work.  He 
astonished  himself  by  continuing  to  live,  but 
he  still  felt  that  the  work  outlined  in  his 
'Radical  Remedy'  was  the  most  important 
that  he  or  any  one  else  could  do. 

"Again,  nine  years  ago,  on  my  last  visit 
to  New  York,  we  passed  over  the  same  road 
and  talked  of  the  years  and  the  work  that 
had  intervened.  He  said  the  only  occasion 
for  surprise  was  that  he  had  lived  so  long 
and — as  he  expressed  it — accomplished  so 
little.  No  one  who  knew  him  needs  to  be 
told  of  his  excessive  modesty.  Death,  he 
said,  was  twenty  years  overdue;  it  was  as- 
tonishing that  it  had  delayed  so  long,  but 
that  would  surely  be  our  last  drive,  for  when 
I  again  came  East  he  would  be  gone.  When 
I  went  in  and  talked  with  his  invalid  father, 
I  asked  if  Dr.  Ned's  self-diagnosis  was  cor- 
rect, and  he  replied  that  while  Dr.  Ned  was 

64 


EDWARD  BOND  FOOTE 

certainly  correct  as  to  his  organic  disease, 
he  could  probably  live  to  old  age  if  he  but 
thought  so.  'Ned's  temperament,'  he  said, 
'was  inherited  from  his  mother,  not  from 
me,  my  temperament  being  sanguine.' 

"But  though  expressing  the  opinion  that 
life  would  soon  cease,  he  did  not  seem  at  all 
depressed.  He  wanted  to  make  the  best  of 
his  time  and  opportunities.  In  his  letters  he 
would  sometimes  express  the  opinion  that 
some  ruling  the  courts  had  made,  rendered 
further  fight  useless  or  impossible. 

"  'They  have  you  bottled  up,'  he  would 
write,  and  would  inclose  a  check,  maybe  for 
ten,  maybe  for  a  hundred  dollars,  to  help  to 
continue  the  fight. 

"  'Our  light  is  so  small  and  flickering  in 
the  wilderness  of  barbarism,'  he  once  said, 
'that  I  often  think  it  is  not  worth  while  for 
men  like  Moses — precious  few  anyway — to 
suffer  for  the  little  that  can  be  done  through 
such  martyrdom.  But  since  he  is  built  that 
way  and  would  rather  be  where  he  is  than 
out  wearing  a  padlock,  we  can't  make  him 
over.  I  must  confess  they  could  padlock  me 
all  over  before  I  would  take  his  medicine.' 
But  we  who  know  him  know  that,  had  the 
occasion  arisen,  he  would  never  have  sub- 
mitted to  the  padlock! 

A  LETTER  FROM 

JULIA  H.  SEVERENCE,  M.  D. 

"I  deeply  regret  being  unable  to  be  with 
you  bodily  as  I  am  in  spirit  this  evening  to 
join  you  in  voicing  our  appreciation  of  the 

65 


EDWARD   IJOND   FOOTE 

great  loss  we  suffer  in  the  departure  of  our 
comrade  and  co-worker,  Dr.  E.  B.  Foote. 

"Dr.  Foote  was  the  most  modest  all-round 
reformer  I  ever  knew.  During  the  many 
years  I  have  known  him,  he  has  ever  been 
ready  to  work  with  voice,  pen  and  purse  for 
the  furtherance  of  any  cause  that  would 
help  in  human  development.  We  shall 
greatly  miss  his  genial  presence  in  our  battle 
for  liberty.  Who  will  fill  the  vacancy  in  our 
ranks  caused  by  his  departure?  I  congratu- 
late the  doctor,  however,  on  his  release  from 
a  long  and  painful  illness. 

A  LETTER  FROM 
M.  FLORENCE  JOHNSON 

"I  wish  it  were  possible  for  me  to  express 
my  appreciation  of  Dr.  Foote,  and  his  work 
for  humanity,  especially  his  work  for  chil- 
dren; striving  for  a  condition  in  which 
children  should  be  welcome  and  well  born, 
if  born  at  all.  This  he  did  not  treat  as 
wholly  a  woman  question,  but  rather  a  race 
question — the  perfecting  of  progeny  through 
both  father  and  mother. 

"He  helped  carry  on  the  work  that  makes 
all  individuals  strive  for  self-betterment  and 
a  knowledge  that  will  eventually  leave  no 
woman  question,  no  'What  is  woman's 
sphere?  What  is  man's  place  in  the  world?' 
but  'Here!  what  can  we  do  for  the  world,' 
and  each  do  all  in  his  or  her  power  in  one 
great  sphere  of  work. 

"I  thank  him. 

66 


A  LETTER  FROM  JAMES  B.  ELLIOTT 

"Secretary  Thomas  Paine  National 
Historical  Association." 

"I  wish  to  add  my  tribute  to  the  many 
others  that  I  know  will  be  made  at  the  meet- 
ing this  morning  to  Dr.  E.  B.  Foote,  a 
worthy  son  of  a  good  father,  and  who  in- 
herited the  good  principles  and  sound  mind 
of  his  parents.  It  was  but  natural  that  he 
should  admire  the  talents  and  character  of 
Thomas  Paine,  in  which  he  took  a  deep  in- 
terest. 

"As  the  treasurer  of  the  Thomas  Paine 
National  Historical  Association,  in  1905, 
I  met  his  father,  and  later,  when  Mr. 
Schroeder,  the  secretary  of  the  Association, 
resigned,  Dr.  Foote  wrote  me,  asking  me  to 
come  and  see  him  and  talk  over  the  situation. 
As  a  result,  I  became  the  secretary  of  the 
National  Association,  which  necessitated  a 
constant  correspondence  with  Dr.  Foote 
which  continued  until  a  short  time  before 
his  death. 

"In  the  Paine  Museum  at  New  Rochelle, 
he  took  a  special  interest;  situated  as  it  was 
a  short  distance  from  Larchmont,  his  sum- 
mer residence.  He  visited  it  in  good  weather 
and  looked  after  its  interests,  and  was  al- 
ways present  at  the  meetings  and  at  the 
celebrations,  and  his  purse  and  pen  went  to- 
gether to  help  render  tardy  justice  to  the 
memory  of  Thomas  Paine. 

"My  last  meeting  with  Doctor  'Ned,'  as 
he  was  lovingly  called  at  New  Rochelle,  was 

67 


KDWAKI)    MOM)    FOOTK 

when  I  presented  the  portrait  of  Gen.  Bonni- 
wcll  to  the  Paine  Homestead.  This  idea  of 
having  the  former  owner  of  the  Paine  House 
— and  an  heir  of  Thomas  Paine — was  pleas- 
ing to  Dr.  Foote  and  lie  insisted  that  I 
should  tell  him  how  I  resurrected  this  for- 
gotten portrait  from  oblivion  and  restored 
it  to  its  proper  place.  He  was  much  inter- 
ested in  the  presentation  address,  and  we 
talked  over  the  possibility  of  further  dona- 
tions. 

"The  Association  is  very  much  indebted 
to  Dr.  Foote  for  the  use  of  his  offices  as  a 
meeting  place  for  the  annual  elections.  My 
relations  with  the  president  and  members  of 
the  Association  have  been  pleasant  and  I 
could  not  help  thinking,  as  I  looked  upon 
all  that  remained  of  our  late  treasurer,  how 
I  would  miss  his  warm  welcome,  pleasant 
smile  and  hearty  handshake  when  I  again 
visit  New  Rochelle,  but  I  know  he  will  be 
with  us  in  spirit  and  will  rejoice  to  see  the 
Paine  Museum  grow;  he  regarded  it  as  a 
memorial  that  would  outlast  marble  or 
bronze  and  cannot  die. 

"I  can  only  add  in  conclusion,  as  most  ap- 
propriate, the  lines  that  appeared  in  the  New 
York  Advertiser,  announcing    the    death    of 
Thomas  Paine,  June,  1809: 
"  'Take  him,  for  all  and  all, 

We  ne'er  shall  look  upon  his  like  again.' 

A  LETTER  FROM  FRANKLIN  STEINER 

" It  was  with  great  regret  that  I 

read  in  to-day's  (October  nineteenth)    Truth 

68 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 

Seeker  of  the  death  of  Dr.  Ned  Foote.  It 
was  not  unexpected,  as  some  months  ago  I 
was  informed  that  the  condition  of  his  health 
was  such  as  to  preclude  recovery.  In  the 
passing  away  of  the  treasurer  of  three  Free 
Thought  associations  we  have  lost  one  of  our 
most  valuable  active  workers.  I  knew  him 
well,  and  am  proud  to  record  the  fact  that 
he  was  one  of  my  earliest  acquaintances 
among  the  prominent  Freethinkers  of  the 
United  States.  I  cannot  help  but  associate 
his  name  with  that  of  his  honored  father,  Dr. 
Edward  Bliss  Foote,  who  passed  from  life 
but  six  years  ago.  I  feel  sure  that  two  more 
splendid  men  never  lived.  Their  influence 
on  all  occasions  was  for  Free  Thought,  for 
Free  Speech,  for  the  spread  of  knowledge 
and  of  liberty;  and  for  the  salvation  of  man, 
through  the  spread  of  intelligence,  the  only 
true  saviour,  from  the  ills  which  beset  him. 
"I  recall  the  time,  in  the  fall  of  1895,  when 
the  elder  Dr.  Foote  entertained  the  late 
Samuel  P.  Putnam  and  myself  at  his  beauti- 
ful home  in  Larchmont,  within  a  stone's 
tli row  of  the  waves  of  Long  Island  Sound. 
It  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  precious 
treasures  in  my  memory.  Not  the  least  of 
his  kindnesses  was  the  drive  to  New  Ro- 
chelle  to  visit  Thomas  Paine's  house  and 
monument.  Dr.  Foote  and  Mr.  Putnam 
were  greatly  concerned  lest  the  property 
should  be  sold  to  someone  who  would  pull 
down  the  house  and  remove  the  monument. 
I'npnily  Dr.  E.  P>.,  Jr.,  lived  to  see  all  fear 
of  this  set  aside  by  the  purchase  of  the 
ground  around  the  monument  by  the  city 

69 


BDWASD    MOM>    FOOTK 

of  New  Rochelle,  and  its  Ueing"  turned  into 
a  park  ;  and  of  the  house  by  the  Huguenot 
Association,  and  now  used  as  a  Paine  mu- 
seum. It  would  be  stating  an  untruth  were 
1  to  say  that  the  loss  of  Dr.  Xed  Foote  leaves 
a  gap  to  be  filled  without  difficulty.  His 
voice,  pen  and  purse  were  always  freely 
given  to  every  cause  for  the  betterment  of 
humanity,  now  and  here.  Gods  in  the  skies 
to  him  were  matters  of  indifference;  but  bet- 
ter, healthier  men  and  women  in  this  world 
and  this  world  a  better  world  than  the  world 
of  old — free  from  ignorance,  superstition, 
bigotry  and  disease — and  glorified  by  lib- 
erty, intelligence,  knowledge  and  human 
brotherhood,  were  to  him  matters  of  the 
greatest  importance  and  worthy  of  the 
bravest  effort.  This  is  the  greatest  tribute 
that  can  be  paid  to  any  mortal;  and  because 
of  that  we  honor  ourselves  by  keeping  green 
the  memory  of  such  noble  men  as  Edward 
Bond  Foote 

LETTER  FROM  CELIA  B.  WHITEHEAD 

" Being  so  far  away,  the  sad  news 

of  our  loss  reached  me  only  a  short  time  ago. 
With  much  sorrow  I  read  of  the  passing  of 
an  old-time  friend  and  comrade. 

"In  the  passing  away  of  Dr.  E.  B.  Foote, 
Jr.,  another  generation  loses  a  great  man. 
It  was  my  privilege  to  have  the  personal 
acquaintance  of  both  the  doctors,  father  and 
son,  for  several  years.  I  shall  always  feel 
that  my  life  is  richer  for  having  known  them. 

"They  were  very  different  in  personal  ap- 

70 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

pearance,  but  strikingly  alike  in  character; 
so  much  so  that  in  writing  of  the  one  I  seem 
also  to  be  writing  of  the  other.  Kind,  tol- 
erant, patient,  hospitable,  fearless,  honest, 
earnest — what  good  word  is  there  that  I 
may  not  say  of  them? 

"Away  back  in  1878,  when  I  first  knew 
them,  the  elder  was  'Dr.  Foote,'  and  the 
other  a  tall,  pale,  quiet  young  man — hardly 
more  than  a  boy  he  seemed  to  me — with 
large,  calm,  observant  eyes,  a  forehead 
broad,  high  and  white,  and  a  voice,  smile 
and  manner  of  wonderful  charm  and  sym- 
pathy. 

"As  we  were  interested  in  many  of  the 
same  questions,  it  was  often  my  privilege 
and  pleasure  to  contribute  to  Dr.  Foote's 
Health  Monthly.  Though  we  often  differed 
in  our  views,  very  widely  sometimes,  never 
once  was  I  made  to  feel  that  my  contribu 
tions  were  unwelcome  or  that  I  might  not 
have  the  fullest  liberty  of  expression.  Free 
Speech  has  lost  a  brave  and  able  defender ; 
and  we  need  them  so  much  in  these  days. 

"With  earnest  and  honest  advocacy  of 
what  he  believed,  our  friend  combined  a 
rare  hospitality  for  the  opinions  of  those 
who  differed  from  him;  and,  seemingly  free 
from  all  prejudice,  asked  only:  What  is 
truth?  More  than  once,  when  1  indulged 
in  harsh  or  impatient  criticism  of  those  who 
did  not  do  or  think  as  I  thought  they  ought, 
I  have  been  made  ashamed  of  my  intolerance 
by  the  calm  and  gentle  words  of  Dr.  Foote. 
T  cannot  remember  that  1  ever  heard  an  tin 

71 


EDWARD    IJOND    FOOTS 

kind  word  from  either  the  elder  or  the 
younger. 

"This  memento  would  be  very  incomplete 
without  mention  of  the  thoroughly  demo- 
cratic spirit  of  our  comrade.  To  my  seem- 
ing, he  always  regarded  wealth  and  station 
as  trivial  incidents,  scarcely  noticed. 

"Always  unobtrusive,  he  was  never  back- 
ward where  he  could  be  of  use.  I  cannot 
imagine  the  Manhattan  Liberal  Club  with- 
out his  benign  presence.  But  it  is  many 
years  since  I  have  been  there,  so  possibly 
there  is  some  one  else  who  can  fill  his  place. 

"I  saw  Dr.  Foote  only  once  after  leaving 
the  East  twelve  years  ago.  I  was  then  in 
deep  grief,  and  found  much  comfort  in  his 
gentle  sympathy,  as  I  am  sure  everyone  did 
who  ever  went  to  him  in  trouble. 

"These  things  are  not  set  down  in  the 
careful  order  such  a  subject  deserves,  be- 
cause I  feared  that  in  this  age  of  hurry  the 
time  might  go  by  till  I  should  be  too  late 
for  any  timely  expression  of  my  apprecia- 
tion. I  have  written  of  him  as  he  seemed 
to  me.    If  he  had  faults  I  did  not  see  them. 

"Will  The  Truth  Seeker  allow  me  to  ex- 
press the  hope  that  some  time,  somewhere, 
it  may  again  be  given  to  me  to  meet  this 
grand  and  beautiful  soul  who  has  lately 
gone  from  our  sight? 

A  LETTER  FROM  JOHN  PECK 

" It  seems  to  me  as  though  I  am 

entitled  to  the  privilege  of  saying  something 
for  Dr.  Foote.  I  was  pained  to  learn  of  his 
death;  it  seemed  to  me  like  parting  with  a 

72 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

near  friend.  From  personal  experience  I 
knew  him  to  be  a  kind,  considerate  and 
benevolent  man.  He  did  not  reach  extreme 
old  age,  but  his  life  was  eminently  useful. 
He  found  happiness  in  promoting  the  happi- 
ness of  others,  and  those  who  follow  his  ex- 
ample will  not  go  far  astray.  Like  Inger- 
soll  he  tried  to  smooth  down  the  rough  and 
disagreeable  places  of  life,  and  make  it  a 
little  more  enjoyable  for  those  who  come 
after.  He  did  not  believe  in  misery  here  in 
order  to  secure  happiness  hereafter.  He  was 
the  friend  of  the  true  and  good;  but  the  de- 
signing, selfish  and  vicious  found  little  favor 
in  his  sight.  He  was  a  lover  of  freedom,  and 
above  all  held  in  utter  abhorrence  ecclesias- 
tical shackles.  I  have  never  met  him,  but 
have  a  good  reason  for  being  thankful  for 
his  friendship  and  generosity.  He  will  al- 
ways hold  a  warm  place  in  my  heart,  and  in 
the  hearts  of  all  who  knew  him.  He  lived 
a  good  life  and  left  the  world  with  a  clean 
record.  His  memory  will  be  cherished  by 
all  who  appreciate  a  noble  manhood. 

FROM  THE  TRUTH  SEEKER 

Death  of  Dr.  Foote 

"Dr.  E.  B.  Foote,  Jr.— Doctor  Ned— died 
at  his  home,  T20  Lexington  Avenue,  New 
York,  on  Saturday,  October  twelfth.  The 
event  was  expected,  for  it  has  been  many 
months  since  Dr.  Foote  lost  the  use  of  his 
limbs  and  became  a  'shut-in,'  but  that  fact 
does  not  lessen  the  sadness  of  the  announce- 
ment. A  trouble  that  began  in  what  he 
called   'neuritis,'  but   was   probably  due   to 

73 


BDWABD   BOND   POOTE 

blood-poisoning  contracted  many  years  ago 
as  a  medical  student,  gradually  extended 
from  the  hands  to  all  parts  of  the  body,  un- 
til paralysis  became  general,  and  little  of  the 
sufferer  retained  animation  except  the  brain. 
The  Truth  Seeker  received  a  letter  from  him 
but  a  few  days  ago  which  was  perhaps  the 
last  he  dictated. 

"Dr.  Edward  Bond  Foote  was  born  on 
August  fifteenth,  fifty-eight  years  ago,  near 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  his  father  being  Edward 
Bliss  Foote,  a  native  of  Ohio,  and  his 
mother,  Catherine  G.  Foote,  a  New  Eng- 
land school  teacher.  The  elder  Foote  was 
for  thirty  years  actively  interested  in  Lib- 
eral work,  and  the  son's  history  during  that 
time  was  identical  with  the  father's.  They 
were  members  of  the  National  Liberal 
League  and  organizers  of  the  National  De- 
fense Association.  It  has  been  said  of  Doc- 
tor Ned  that  he  was  theoretically  an  oppo- 
nent and  practically  an  opposer  of  all  the 
principal  restrictions  on  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness;  that  he  did  not  believe 
in  compulsory  vaccination,  or  the  suppres- 
sion of  undiplomaed  healers,  or  postoffice 
censorship,  or  interference  with  liberty  of 
the  press,  nor  in  laws  governing  the  moral 
or  religious  character  of  matter  transported 
by  common  carriers,  nor  in  the  concealment 
of  any  kind  of  physiological  knowledge. 
And  all  that  he  believed  in  he  advocated,  and 
all  that  he  did  not  believe  in,  of  a  character 
affecting  rights  and  liberties,  he  worked 
against  with  voice  and  pen  and  money  and 
influence.     He  helped  everybody  who  was 

74 


EDWARD    BOND    FOOTE 

working  in  the  same  field.  He  was  an  of- 
ficer in  all  of  the  Liberal  societies  of  New 
York,  as  president,  secretary,  or  treasurer — 
usually  the  last,  for  he  inherited  his  father's 
business  capacity,  and  like  him  was  a  man 
of  means  and  a  liberal  giver.  At  the  time 
of  his  death  he  was  treasurer  of  the  Ameri- 
can Secular  Union,  of  the  Free  Speech 
League,  and  of  the  National  Thomas  Paine 
Historical  Association.  He  was  first  treas- 
urer of  the  Francisco  Ferrer  Association. 
Nobody  but  himself  knew  how  much  of  his 
means  he  devoted  to  his  friends  in  forward 
movements,  or  in  adversity.  He  began  pub- 
lic speaking  before  he  was  out  of  the  Med- 
ical College,  and  gave  many  lectures  before 
the  Manhattan  Liberal  Club.  He  was  a 
good  writer,  practical  and  full  of  sane  sug- 
gestions, and  always  in  even  temper.  His 
sense  of  humor  was  acute,  and  a  good  joke 
went  as  far  in  enlisting  his  sympathies  as  a 
tale  of  woe,  for  he  responded  to  both.  He 
forgot  nobody,  even  those  who  might  not 
think  themselves  worthy  of  being  held  in 
mind,  and  was  perpetually  surprising  them 
with  his  remembrances.  There  would  be  no 
bad  people  in  the  world  if  he  could  have 
bribed  them  all  to  be  good.  Some  eight 
years  ago  he  asked  the  writer  to  prepare  a 
brief  sketch  of  his,  Dr.  Foote's,  life  for  a 
publication  that  was  issuing.  He  said  he 
wanted  it  honest  and  truthful,  and  we  con- 
sented with  the  understanding  that  he 
should  do  an  'obituary'  for  us  when  the 
proper  time  arrived. 

"His  was  a  life  that   will  bear  the  light. 

75 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

There  is  nothing  to  conceal  or  to  overlook. 
He  had  the  qualities  that  make  up  the  supe- 
rior specimens  of  the  human  family.  He 
was  one  of  the  best  men  we  ever  knew,  and 
if  he  had  any  faults  we  never  detected  them 
or  heard  them  named.  A  rare  gift  to  hu- 
manity was  Doctor  Ned — a  gift  for  which 
no  equivalent  remains  now  that  it  is  with- 
drawn, except  the  memory  of  one  who  was 
always  loyal,  always  generous,  always  help- 
ful, and  ever  the  soul  of  cheerfulness  and  the 
cup  of  strength." 

"The  attendants  at  the  funeral  of  Dr.  E. 
B.  Foote,  October  sixteenth,  crowded  the 
rooms  of  the  double  house  at  120  Lexington 
Avenue,  the  historic  home  of  the  Footes, 
where  the  services  were  held.  In  dwindled 
numbers  the  Old  Guard  who  knew  the  doc- 
tor as  a  boy  came  there  to  bury  him.  Joseph 
Warwick,  the  oldest  of  them,  with  his 
eighty-three  years,  and  David  Hoyle,  two 
years  his  junior,  were  present.  Thaddeus 
B.  Wakeman,  nearing  seventy-nine,  served 
to  recall  the  many  occasions  when  he,  as  not 
on  this  occasion,  spoke  the  last  word.  Da- 
vid Rousseau,  aged  but  stalwart,  might  have 
met  and  saluted  young  Ned  Foote  in  his 
sailboat  on  the  Sound  thirty  years  since. 
Dr.  Charles  Andrews  and  his  family  had  'al- 
ways' known  him.  Mrs.  Mary  Watkins, 
who  as  Miss  Smith  wrote  the  elder  Dr. 
Foote's  letters  two  decades  ago  and  after, 
seemed  the  surviving  member  of  Foote  and 
Son.  Edwin  C.  Walker,  who  has  known 
Dr.  Ned  ever  since  he  needed  a  friend,  could 
bear  first-hand  testimony  to  his  devotion  to 

76 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 

liberty  of  press  and  mails.  In  the  younger 
crowd  was  Edward  Dobson,  who  as  an  em- 
ployee of  The  Truth  Seeker  in  the  '90s  must 
have  mailed  away  many  copies  of  Dr.  Foote's 
books,  and  who,  after  getting  literary  in- 
struction in  this  office,  is  now  the  telegraph 
editor  on  a  big  daily.  And  there  were  the 
ruddy  and  golden  youths,  Leonard  Abbott 
and  James  Morton,  and  the  battle-scarred 
old  soldier  of  the  cooperative  commonwealth, 
C.  P.  Somerby.  Gilbert  Roe,  Esq.,  was  the 
doctor's  colleague  in  the  Free  Speech 
League,  as  was  Theodore  Schroeder. 

We  saw  Mrs.  Sterling  and  Mrs.  Cone  and 
Rachel  Andrews  and  Maude  Ingersoll  among 
the  women.  The  employees  of  the  Murray 
Hill  Publishing  Company,  of  which  Dr. 
Foote  was  the  head,  made  a  considerable 
group,  and  the  charitable  and  benevolent  as- 
sociations to  the  support  of  which  he  was 
contributor  probably  were  represented  by 
persons  unknown  to  the  Liberal  world.  On 
a  mantel  stood  a  photograph  of  Ned  from 
which  was  made  the  half-tone  in  Putnam's 
'Four  Hundred  Years  of  Freethought.'  It 
looked  as  he  did  that  year  we  shifted  sand- 
bags for  him  on  his  boat  that  was  in  the 
Larchmont  regatta,  and  when  he  could  make 
somersault  dives  from  a  springboard.  We 
forget  the  name  of  the  boat,  but  recall  the 
winning,  the  jubilation  and  the  dinner  where 
ginger  ale  flowed  like  champagne.  It  is  a 
satisfying  picture,  with  its  associations,  and 
so  we  did  not  glance  with  the  others  at  the 
wasted  face  in  the  elongated  coffin  among 
the  wreaths.     We  could  hear  but  a  part  of 

77 


EDWARD    HON  I)    I'OOTE 

the  funeral  discourse  by  John  Lovejoy  Eliol 
of  the  Society  for  Ethical  Culture,  to  which 
we  are  told  Dr.  Foote  belonged.  Those  who 
heard  it  say  that,  knowing  Dr.  Foote,  they 
could  trace  his  likeness  in  Dr.  Eliot's  delinea- 
tion of  his  life  and  character. 

Only  members  of  the  Old  Guard  followed 
the  hearse  to  the  crematory.  The  mech- 
anism of  the  catafalque  moved  inexorably 
and  in  unbroken  silence,  save  from  the  organ 
strains;  that  part  of  our  friend  which  was 
visible  and  which  we  have  lost  passed  be- 
hind the  closed  doors  of  the  retort;  and, 
somewhat  stunned,  the  spectators  turned 
away.  It  was  a  double  farewell  that  was 
paid  that  day — a  farewell  to  Dr.  Ned  Foote, 
and  good-bye  to  the  house  at  120  Lexing- 
ton Avenue  where  they  have  met  for  the 
last  time  in  council.  Dr.  Foote  survived 
his  two  brothers,  and  neither  he  nor  they 
left  offspring  to  bear  the  family  name,  which 
is  gone." 

FROM  THE  FREETHINKER 

London,  England,  November  8,  1912 

" Dr.  Foote  will  never  be  forgotten 

by  those  who  knew  him.  In  my  own  mem- 
ory he  will  always  occupy  a  peculiar  place. 

His  was  a  beautiful  and  generous 

spirit,  without  vice  of  any  kind.  He  was 
not  even  personally  ambitious.  Selfishness 
and  vanity  had  no  part  in  him.  He  was  a 
born  giver;  his  generosity  was  known  from 
New  York  to  San  Francisco  and  he  often 
sent  me  donations  for  the  work  here  which 
he  would  not  even  allow  me  to  acknowledge 

78 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

publicly Lack  of  physical  vitality 

which  nature  showers  lavishly  on  pigs  and 
fools,  lent  a  certain  appearance  of  frustra- 
tion to  his  life.  Nature  so  often  treats  her 
elect  in  this  way  that  perhaps  I  may  well 
close  this  tribute  to  my  friend  with  those 
lines  of  Swinburne's: 

"  'For  thee,  O  now  a  silent  soul,  my  brother, 
Take  at  my  hands  this  garland,  and  fare- 
well. 
Thin  is  the  leaf  and  chill  the  wintry  smell, 
A  chill  the  solemn  earth — a  fatal  mother, 
With  sadder  than  the  Xiobean  womb, 
And  in  the  hollow  of  her  breasts  a  tomb. 
Content  thee,  howsoe'er,  whose  days  arc- 
done  ; 
There  lies  not  any  troublous  thing  before, 
Nor  sight  nor  sound  to  war  against  thee 

more, 
For  whom  all  winds  are  quiet  as  the  sun. 
All  waters  as  the  shore.' ' 

FROM  MOTHER  EARTH 

"In  the  death  of  Dr.  Edward  B.  Foote  the 
radical  movement  has  lost  one  of  its  staunch- 
est  friends. 

"While  the  main  interest  of  Dr.  Foote  cen- 
tered in  Free  Thought  and  Free  Press  along 
the  lines  of  sex  enlightenment,  he  never 
failed  to  take  a  broad-minded  stand  in  be- 
half of  everything  pertaining  to  free  expres- 
sion. He  differed  from  the  average  liberal 
in  that  he  was  a  firm  and  active  believer  in 
Free  Speech  even  for  those  with  whom  he  did 
not  agree.  Whether  it  was  a  question  of 
arrested  participants  in  a  Czolgosz  meeting, 

79 


EDWARD    BOND    FOOTE 

or  a  Free  Speech  fight  in  Spokane,  San  Diego 
or  some  other  place,  Dr.  Foote  could  always 
be  relied  upon  for  his  sympathy,  and  for  his 
moral  and  financial  assistance. 

"Though  not  an  Anarchist,  he  was  a  most 
generous  and  devoted  friend  to  Mother 
Earth  and  to  the  work  carried  on  by  our 
little  group.  We  mourn  his  death,  however, 
not  because  of  his  generosity  to  us,  but  be- 
cause with  him  departed  a  man  who  really 
believed  in  freedom  of  speech — for  everyone, 
including  those  whom  he  considered  in  the 
wrong.  Still  more  do  we  mourn  his  death 
because  of  the  fact  that  there  are  few,  very 
few,  young  Americans  to  take  the  place  of 
men  like  Dr.  Edward  B.  Foote." 

FROM  THE  MALTHUSIAN 

November  15,  1912 
"We  deeply  regret  to  hear  that  Dr.  Ed- 
ward B.  Foote,  our  constant  supporter  in  the 
United  States,  died  on  Saturday,  October 
twelfth  last,  at  his  home  at  120  Lexington 
Avenue,  New  York.  Dr.  Foote  was  a  warm 
and  consistent  advocate  of  all  advanced  hu- 
manitarian causes,  and  the  list  of  societies 
in  which  he  took  an  active  interest  is  a  for- 
midable one.  In  the  New  York  Herald  in 
which  the  announcement  of  his  death  ap- 
peared mention  is  made  of  his  connection 
with  the  Association  for  Practical  House- 
keeping, the  Men's  League  for  Women's 
Suffrage,  the  Berkshire  Farm  Association, 
New  York  Probation  Association,  Brooklyn 
Bureau  of  Charities,  Parks  and  Playgrounds 
Association,  Children's  Aid  Society,  Prison 

80 


EDWARD   BOND  FOOTE 

Association  of  New  York,  National  Purity 
Association,  Society  for  Ethical  Culture, 
New  Rochelle  Hospital,  Washington  Square 
House  for  Friendless  Girls,  Mothers  and 
Babies  Committee  of  the  State  Charities 
Aid  Committee,  Child  Labor  Committee, 
Brooklyn  Affiliated  Charities,  American  Sea- 
men's Friend  Society,  Postal  Reform 
League,  and  the  Charity  Organization  So- 
ciety  

"At  a  meeting  of  the  Council  of  the  Mal- 
thusian  League,  held  on  Thursday,  Novem- 
ber seventh,  the  following  resolution  was 
unanimously  passed. 

"  'The  Council  of  the  Malthusian  League 
has  heard  with  the  deepest  regret  of  the 
death  of  Dr.  Edward  B.  Foote,  and  desires 
to  record  the  obligation  of  the  Neo-Mal- 
thusian  movement  to  him  for  his  teaching 
and  support.  It  tenders  its  heartfelt  sym- 
pathy to  Mrs.  Foote  in  her  bereavement.'  " 

FROM  THE  TRUTH  SEEKER 

November  2,  191 2 

Dr.  Ned  Foote 

"Under  the  paralyzing  sense  of  loss  in  the 
death  of  Dr.  Edward  B.  Foote,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  prepare  a  formal  eulogy.  His  per- 
sonality was  too  broad,  too  sweet,  too  lov- 
able, to  allow  the  ordinary  conventional  trib- 
ute. A  hater  of  empty  ceremonialism,  and 
in  every  moment  of  his  life  a  consistent 
lover  of  straightforward  simplicity,  he  would 
not  have  willed  that  any  of  his  friends  should 
speak  of  him  other  than  as  the  heart  might 
prompt.     He  did  not  directly  fight  conven- 

81 


EDWARD   BOND   POOTB 

tionality;  he  simply  lived  beyond  and  above 
it.  liven  long-  after  the  death  of  his  father, 
it  pleased  him  to  be  referred  to  by  the  ten- 
derly familiar  name  of  Doctor  Xed.  He  was 
at  all  times  approachable  even  by  those  hav- 
ing no  claim  whatever  on  his  exceedingly 
valuable  time.  To  every  suggestion,  how- 
ever impracticable,  and  to  every  request, 
however  unreasonable,  he  listened  with  the 
same  unvarying  kindness  and  thoughtful 
consideration.  His  denial,  rarely  heard 
where  even  a  grain  of  merit  could  be  detect- 
ed by  him,  was  more  kindly  and  gentle  than 
the  consent  of  most  men  would  be,  and  was 
invariably  tempered  by  some  spontaneous 
word  or  act  of  help.  How  many  individuals 
have  been  helped  by  him  over  tight  places, 
or  saved  from  utter  ruin  by  his  unequaled 
generosity,  will  never  be  known  or  even 
guessed.  His  public  beneficences  were 
enormous,  and  probably  bulked  larger  in 
proportion  to  his  income  than  the  donations 
of  any  other  well-to-do  Liberal  in  the  land. 
It  has  always  been  impossible  to  learn  their 
aggregate,  as  his  extreme  modesty  insisted 
on  anonymity  in  the  case  of  a  great  number 
of  them.  Great  as  they  were,  however,  it  is 
doubtful  whether  they  were  not  overtaken 
and  passed  by  his  countless  gifts  and  prac- 
tically unreturnable  loans  to  particular  per- 
sons in  need  of  help.  His  nature  seemed 
wholly  composed  of  kindness ;  and  he  found 
no  pleasure  in  life  comparable  to  that  of 
bringing  brightness  into  the  world  by  fruit- 
ful acts  of  helpfulness  to  persons  or  to 
causes. 

82 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

"It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  any  person 
knowing  Dr.  Foote,  even  slightly,  and  not 
loving  him.  This  expression,  often  redolent 
of  sloppy  sentimentality,  is  the  only  one  that 
fits  in  his  case.  He  radiated  a  peculiar 
sweetness,  which  I  have  marked  in  but  two 
or  three  other  men  among  the  thousands 
whom  I  have  known,  one  of  them  being  his 
universally  loved  father,  from  whom  he  de- 
rived a  double  portion  of  that  rare  attribute. 
There  was  not,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  the 
slightest  trace  of  effeminacy  in  his  nature. 
His  gentleness  involved  no  lack  of  virility, 
as  all  can  testify  who  have  seen  his  eye  flash 
with  noble  indignation,  and  have  heard  his 
voice  ring  out  in  energetic  manly  protest 
against  some  act  of  public  or  private  iniqui- 
ty. Of  all  forms  of  evil,  he  most  abhorred 
any  wilful  attempt  to  hold  human  beings  in 
ignorance.  Among  the  many  causes  to 
which  he  devoted  his  energies  and  his 
money,  none  was  closer  to  his  heart  than  the 
fight  for  Free  Speech  in  its  every  phase.  To 
my  personal  knowledge,  there  were  occa- 
sions when  he  deeply  regretted  the  course 
taken  by  certain  victims  of  persecution,  and 
found  himself  in  complete  and  emphatic  op- 
position to  their  entire  point  of  view  and  the 
methods  pursued  by  them.  This,  however, 
never  caused  him  to  waver  a  hair's  breadth 
in  the  ardor  with  which  he  fought  to  secure 
for  them  the  full  right  of  expression  which 
he  claimed  for  himself  and  for  all  human 
beings.  No  man  ever  lived  who  trusted 
more  implicitly  the  inherent  power  of  truth 
to  justify  itself,  in  the  face  of  the  allowance 

83 


EDWARD   DOND   FOOTE 

of  the  freest  possible  course  to  even  the  most 
multifarious  and  deadliest  errors,  lie  held 
that  the  promulgation  of  the  most  insidious 
and  infamous  doctrine  was  fraught  with  im- 
measurably less  evil  to  humanity  than  the 
annihilation  of  vital  human  rights  involved 
in  its  violent  suppression  by  law  or  by  mob 
rule. 

"It  would  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  Dr. 
Foote  had  become  a  full  convert  to  every 
movement  to  which  he  so  generously  con- 
tributed. With  the  most  progressive  views 
he  was  indeed  in  hearty  sympathy.  But 
there  were  many  movements,  young  and  in 
need  of  encouragement,  as  to  which  his 
judgment  remained  in  reserve.  Yet  he 
could  see  in  them  the  opportunity  for  human 
enlightenment  on  important  subjects,  and 
the  probability  of  social  progress  receiving 
a  measure  of  stimulus  through  their  agita- 
tion. Hence  he  did  not  hesitate  to  assist 
their  ardent  defenders  to  bring  more  fully 
to  the  world  the  message  which  they  felt 
prompted  to  deliver.  Unlike  many  reform- 
ers, he  did  not  fail  to  perceive  the  need  of 
immediate  succor  for  the  victims  of  funda- 
mental wrongs,  while  striving  with  all  his 
might  to  reach  and  remove  the  underlying 
causes  of  those  wrongs.  The  partial  list  of 
the  organizations  to  which  he  contributed, 
which  will  be  found  in  a  former  issue  of 
The  Truth  Seeker,  well  illustrates  his  prac- 
tical realization  of  the  balance  to  be  kept 
among  the  many  forms  of  activity  for  the 
public  welfare. 

"When  all  these  things  have  been  said, 

84 


EDWARD   BOND   FOOTE 

there  is  still  no  adequate  expression  of  the 
heaviness  which  lies  on  the  hearts  of  a  mul- 
titude who  do  not  easily  yield  to  emotion. 
The  friend  whom  we  mourn  was  not  a  mere 
nexus  of  altogether  desirable  qualities,  to 
which  we  may  pay  tribute  in  carefully  chosen 
words.  He  was  a  warm,  living  personality, 
belonging  so  intimately  to  our  lives  that  it 
is  hardly  possible  to  believe  that  he  is  really 
gone.  It  seems  impossible  to  spare  one 
whose  place  can  never  be  taken  by  another. 
He  was  a  man  of  men,  perhaps  the  truest 
of  soul  and  highest  of  purpose  whom  I  have 
ever  known.  Death  came  to  him  as  a  re- 
lease from  extreme  physical  suffering.  He 
lies  at  rest,  'a  portion  of  the  loveliness  which 
once  he  made  more  lovely';  and  our  only 
fitting  tribute  to  his  memory  must  be  to 
carry  on  to  a  larger  triumph  the  work  for 
humanitv  which  was  all  of  life  to  him. 
DEATH  OF  EDWARD  B.  FOOTE. 

Louis  F.  Post,  United  States  Commis- 
sioner of  Labor  in  an  editorial  in  The  Public 
said : 

"In  the  death  on  the  twelfth  of  Dr. 
Edward  B.  Foote  of  New  York,  progressive 
movements  have  lost  one  of  their  most  loyal 
supporters.  His  devotion  began  with  his 
youth;  it  never  slackened  until  his  death. 
With  some  of  his  activities  The  Public  was 
not  in  sympathy,  but  Dr.  Foote's  truly  demo- 
cratic spirit  which  inspired  them  all,  and  was 
as  a  steady  light  in  a  dark  place,  could  not 
fail  to  command  universal  respect.  I  le  served 
not  only  causes  that  were  popular,  but  also 
and  with  even  more  intensity  many  that  w  ere 
yet  in  their  swaddling  clothes  and  their  man 
gers,  or  in  process  of  crucifixion.  The  popu- 
larity or  the  contempt  they  provoked  made 
no  difference  to  him.  His  simple  test  for  the 
worthiness  of  a  cause  was  its  righteousness 
at  the  bar  of  his  own  judgment  and  con- 
science. Nor  was  he  intolerant.  With  true 
charity  he  accorded,  in  good  faith  to  others 
of  good  faith,  the  rights  of  judgment  he  cher- 
ished for  himself." — The  Public.  October  25, 
1912. 


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